Planet Centric Design, is it the way, or not?
Why are we relating design to the planet?
All living beings are experiencing a world crisis that affects us equally, and it shouldn’t be overlooked. Most human actions increase the climate crisis to frightening and devastating levels.
First of all, we should understand that the problem that we are living with is not the disappearance of the Earth, but instead accelerating the disappearance of life on it.
Each living being plays a role in this world, and it is paradoxical to believe that the human is characterized and differentiated by their ability to think ahead, yet they seem to not perceive the dimension and impact of their actions. There are a lot of articles, documents, and research that help us understand the effect humans produce on the environment. I will skip discussing this, and instead address our discipline: the design.
Workshop time!
Which actions do we quickly associate with contamination? As citizens and designers, where can we take action?
10 UX and UI designers from Argentina, Colombia, México, Perú and USA were summoned to participate in a workshop to address the need to implement tools that evaluate the impact of products or services we make on human life, alongside a motivation to understand the position of the designer in these situations.
This activity was conducted online, by video calls and digital tools that made collaborative and simultaneous work possible. It was an active participation, even for designers not closely linked with environmental and social issues.
Through different questions, at first more general and comprehensive thinking about how the environment around us is, and then more precise about our action, the answers were analyzed and divided into two groups: “current situation” (what’s happening) and “where to take action” (what to do).
The first group (“current situation”), identified individualism, anthropocentrism, and the focus on the “personal good”, as a starting point, from which two large groups of actions, direct and indirect, were triggered and provoked.
In this case, when talking about direct or indirect, reference is made to the proximity and visibility of an event as a consequence of another.
Direct actions, perceptible at a glance:
• Consumption
• Contamination
Indirect actions, created as a cause of direct actions:
• Habitat destruction
• Illness propagation
• Species extinction
Both of the above categories of actions are not thought of as visible, the idea that we are the authors or promoters of these concepts is still far off. In some cases our view is shortened to the more immediate, momentary and personal.
It is not a minor point that we are in a global context that encourages and educates us to think this way. Acting in pursuit of global social welfare is perceived as an alternative position, sometimes disruptive, and even a little utopian and exaggerated. This system feeds and promotes the idea that all of our indirect impact is ignored and invisible.
The key insights developed:
• The centralization of the problem falls into the individualism and anthropocentrism of each human.
• In that context, the way that we consume is the point that is being identified as the cause of contamination.
• Individual discourses are more centered on a necessity of attitude change and direct actions, rather than on consequences and indirect actions. We see the nearest without understanding the furthest.
Designers, it’s our moment
And with that, let’s talk about what is more interesting for us: where can the design intervene? How is it related to our discipline?
Each product or service that we make is delivered to a wide range of f people, and each decision that we choose must be analyzed on an even greater level of impact.
The methodology Planet Centric Design began to develop at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, with a group of designers that began to germinate and propagate the idea. Keeping the planet as the center and focus of our interest, PCD provides an answer to this need, developing activities, strategies and questions that answer and minimize the negative environmental and social impact that the products we produce (digital and non digital) have.
This “methodology” (i.e. tools to integrate in the creation of products and services) can be implemented in any step of the process. The focus is to evaluate the real impact that our products will generate, fomenting proposals for more sustainable new alternatives.
In turn, it could be argued that Planet Centric Design criticizes and doesn’t endorse User Centric Design, but I consider a combination of both methodologies is the best result: let’s think about the human, without neglecting the non-immediate environment. As a result, a more ethical product.
So what does PCD raise?
Regarding the approaches, while User Centric Design analyzes desirable, feasible and viable, Planet Centric Design goes further and also analyzes what is responsible, transparent and systematic:
• Being conscious of what we are really making for and in the world.
• Giving a transparent and clear message to the user, even fostering “new” perspectives.
• Engaging the value chain and stakeholder networks, going beyond the surface and embracing complexities.
For that, PCD can take and exchange Design Thinking tools to produce a significant change.
It is not minor to point out from where UCD starts and spreads: it derives into a capitalist context in which we are all immersed and related, generating use and abuse of the resources; but PCD brings visibility to the idea that we can’t damage the Earth for a short-term thought, because with some decisions that we take, in parallel, we are accelerating our disappearance (not an exaggeration!) as Kwame Ferreira explains in her article “A case for planet centric design”.
“As we improve the UCD, we are accelerating our demise in parallel.”
According to a survey that I made, when “Planet Centric Design” is mentioned to people who have never read about the concept, it is most quickly associated with reasons almost exclusively environmental and ecological causes. In some cases, many people do not feel mobilized by the cause and, therefore, can ignore what this methodology raises, or just do not be drawn to dig deep. While for the other side, as we know, the term “User Centric Design” takes the user as a consumer, focusing on him and in his close surroundings.
I believe that neither of these terminologies fully represent the objective that Planet Centric Design is being raised. It would be a better approach if this iterative process doesn’t have a name align itself and focuses exclusively on the planet (PCD), nor on a specific person, as user and consumer (UCD).
We need to think of these practices and terminology as a fusion, whereas the designer continues to start with the human, seeing the immediate context, while taking into account his non-immediate environment as something also relevant and indispensable. How can I make sure that the functionality that I am developing, the product that I am optimizing, or the service that I am improving, has the least global impact?
We could mention the existing concept of “Human Centric Design”, but not as a synonym of a User -as currently is happening in the relation UCD/HCD-, if not understanding the person as a living being of the human race, part of a complex natural system, and part of a collective, from which each action taken has an impact on this planet. Therefore, we need to apply necessary tools to reduce the holistic negative impact.
In addition to starting to use terminology in a more conscious way, we should also incorporate this thinking into decisions, strategies, and new rules to make products and services more conscious. The impacts of these products and services have repercussions here, in the real world.
Ok, last step
How is all this implemented into digital design?
To start implementing Planet Centric Design, we need to get involved. It can be easier to visualize PCD into the industrial design process, where we have tangible materials and construction processes that are easier to associate sustainability.
It can be implemented in the logistics of the services we work on. For example, if a food delivery app has 3 customers in the same neighborhood order from the same shop, it sends three delivery drivers on the same route. It’s clear that the repeated routes aren’t necessary, and that for the benefit of speed and immediacy to make the deliveries, we create more pollution. Another good example for UX designers, is the real case of Google Maps, that chooses as the default route the least contaminating, informing this decision to the users.
For visual design, we can start thinking about visualizing different choices into mobile apps, such as dark mode, which is inclusive for people with different visual capabilities while also helping save battery, therefore reducing energy consumption. If we build upon features like this by integrating educational messaging that communicates the benefit to users, we are generating a much more significant change than we thought. There are more decisions to bear in mind, such as image size, video and micro interaction uses, the amount of font variables, prioritizing mobile first, and more.
Stopping and analyzing the digital product behavior, with the intention to minimize each product’s footprint allows us to visualize the leverage points where we can suggest, act, and create a great positive impact.
There are thousands of solutions to integrate more PCD in our work, and they will undoubtedly depend on the characteristics of each product, context, geography, objectives, etc. There are simple approaches to bringing Planet Centric Design into the world of digital design. From the UI to the logistics of the service itself, there are multiple factors that can be modified to generate a more ethical product.
We just need commitment, and to sit down and ideate :)
Special thanks to Selina Tedesco
