Stay Crazy: How do we design human in our digital world?
By Hector Pottie, Creative Director — Method London
As the amazing possibilities of digital technology keep advancing forward and we accelerate at light speed into the future I have recently become more and more fascinated by the counter-question of what does it mean, as a designer, to be ‘human’ amongst all of this innovation and change?
I love technology. I’m intrigued by the pace of global and societal progress that digital enables. Facebook, Spotify, the iPhone, Airbnb, and Snapchat are all under 15 years old. Google is still a wild teenager under 20. It’s no time at all. Anyone remember what it was like before they were around? In the words of Ferris Bueller ‘Life moves pretty fast’ and nothing more so than digital technology.
With so many advances in this realm, it’s important that we keep considering the question of how we ensure a ‘human’ experience stays central to what will happen in the future.
As AI, machine learning, chats bots, and the power of the algorithm begin to take over the more linear knowledge-based tasks within our lives this frees up designers to think more laterally and create experiences that genuinely appeal to our emotional and sensorial human needs. Over the last ten years, I’ve heard many times that ‘the computer’ will make designers obsolete. The rise of codified and templated design, mixed in with a global Pinterest board of ‘taste’ certainly means that there are faster and easier ways to make things. Templated website with a few well shot pictures of hipsters or commission something with deep insight and individuality? It’s easy to see why the first option on cost and time may feel more appealing. I believe that designers are not being made obsolete, more they have a different responsibility.
In simple terms our job is no longer to add mathematical logic and reason, it’s to add erratic, beautiful, and totally unexpected.
Digital technology, globalisation and (I hate to say it) branding has made the world, certainly the western world, become slowly more similar, and perhaps a little boring. Same shops, same high streets, same fashion… the music sounds the same… the cars look the same. We all sit in the same coffee shops with the same bearded baristas and a few succulents. The interaction models on many websites and apps are identical. There are about 5 ways of doing it right?
But hang on a minute isn’t there a human need and desire to experience different? To experience a certain uniqueness? So convention is good. It’s understood, it works and is easy for the end user, but still there is a bigger point of creating something beyond the expected? Creating brands, products, and services that go beyond simply functioning or the predicted norm? Do we as designers have a responsibility to push things into a more exquisite place? And to make our creations directly appeal or even delight our human senses. I believe we do.
To be clear, I think ‘different’ for difference’s sake is dangerous. Like turning up to work in a clown suit just to stand out… you’re going to look like a turkey right. That’s not the point I’m pushing. My question is how do we strive to design experiences that move people; We must create poignant, stirring, meticulous, wild, poetic, fun creations for the world. What has made us amazing as a species is the ability to dream up and make wondrous things. Cathedrals, symphonies, electric cars, Ziggy Stardust, an online booking service to allow you to stay in other people’s houses, or even ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ weren’t created out of pure function. Creative greatness comes from a desire to totally overwhelm the senses. This isn’t a point on morality or ethics in design, those are big points for another article, this is simply about making sure we keep a healthy dose of ‘fuck yeah!’ in our work. Keep things edgy. What ever happened to punk rock and all that…
‘Imagination is more important than knowledge…’ said Albert Einstein, ‘We need men (and women) that can dream of things that never were’ said JFK. ‘Think different’ said Steve Jobs. No truer, and no more relevant words have been spoken. Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. User-centered design to me means not just showing the user a world that they understand but actually taking them further than they have been before. We have a responsibility to create more than expected. User-centered design 2.0.
I watched a presentation once from a consultant colleague of mine where he showed an image of a swiss railway (accurate, on-time, consistent) on one side and the Muppets (bonkers, crazy, endearing) on the other, and asked the room which one they were? It was a room half filled with designers so a lot of hands went up for the swiss railway. That’s our job yes? To make things work better, be more efficient, look considered and perfect. To a large degree, this is true but his point was that we actually need to be more like the muppets. The robots will soon have the creation of flawless functionality totally down, and be constantly learning how to correct and improve it. So our job as designers isn’t to compete with that. It’s to bring more ‘delight your senses’ to the party. To bring the human factor. The idiosyncratic, the curious, the wonder, the poetry. To imagine the things the algorithm won’t suggest. To get out of the echo chamber or the filter bubble. Our job as designers is to enlarge the richness of experience by suggesting something totally unexpected. Can a robot produce serendipity? Discuss…
I don’t want to live in a world where everything is the same. Living our lives to look like a perfect Pinterest board, all morphing into each other’s habits and styles, looking just like everyone else, and then documenting it, and pushing it back out there. #homogenizedmiddleclassnarcissist? I’m totally guilty of being sucked into this but I crave the sensation of being shown something new and exciting. Experiences that change you for the better by opening up your mind not closing it back down. The algorithm filter bubbles of personalization that Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Google create are powerful forces. They buffer our lives and experiences. They shape our points of view and feed us only what they think we want to consume. Helpful or dangerous? Are they serving us up more of the same or could they do more to enriching our lives?
The big point I’m making in all of this is to remember what makes you human.
Remember all the wonderful qualities that allow us, as designers, to bring to the table beyond pure functionality in the experiences we imagine and create. To really emotionally connect or move people. As I’ve said before the strongest experiences form our memories. From a brand point of view, this is the definition of relevance and is what keeps a company massively salient. Design with wit, with compassion, with guts…. Bring hysteria, bring tears (hopefully of joy), bring wonder, and to take people’s breath away.
Thankfully I am lucky enough to live and work in the glorious East End of London, surrounded by some of the most talented people on the planet, and this human quality of looking for what is different, seeking out the edge, finding what stirs the soul, is very much alive and well. Every new generation brings fresh thinking and energy. As The Who sang, ‘the kids are alright’, so this article isn’t saying this way of thinking is disappearing, it’s not, I’m simply acknowledging the need for it, and hopefully encouraging us all to stay adventurous and wild in our creative outputs. There has never been a more exciting or needed time to be a designer. Stay crazy.
