H => H++
Today, we understand the damage humankind has inflicted on the environment, polluting the air, land, and seas. We are beginning to understand the damage caused by pollution, which pollutes lives and cultures, sometimes infecting one culture with another under the mistaken belief that the infector’s culture is superior. For example, the western way of things, doing, and governing (from what is called “the global North) onto all other cultures (what is called the global South). And sometimes, for the sake of profits, destroying people’s lives by addicting them to games, experiences, foods, or drugs.
I have been arguing in my talks, podcasts, and my latest book (Design for a better world: meaningful, sustainable, humanity-centered) that we must change our behavior. We must stop destroying the environment through our mining and manufacturing, by our deliberate designs that are difficult to repair or to reuse, and that have a short life cycle. By the use of materials that pollute the earth after they have been discarded. Yes, plastics. Plastics are extremely valuable and useful, but a harmful pest with a long, unproductive and harmful life when discarded. It is difficult to find suitable replacements, but we have no choice: we must.
I use the word “Humanity” instead of “Human” to talk about our need to design not just for an individual human being, but for all humanity, which I define as all living things, the entire ecological system and cultures. So I move from Human-Centered work to Humanity-Centered, from HC to HC+, where the + represents all the things we used to ignore. Human-Centered Design, HCD, becomes Humanity-Centered Design: HCD+. Human-Centered Design plus more.
A Comment on the Word “Humanity.”
No single word can capture the full meaning of what is intended. As a result, other names exist. For example, Planet-Centered and Life-Centered. That’s OK. We all mean the same thing. I like humanity-centered, in part because it still preserves the “H” and it makes it clear that humanity-centered, HC+ is built upon the principles of human-centered, but with more. The name is of secondary importance. It is what we do that is most important.
D => A
Designers are proud of their designs. Those who create plans are proud of their plans. But both are of no value; that is, they are worthless until they are implemented, that is, until they are turned into Action (yes, with an upper case A). And invariably, what is implemented is not the same as what has been designed or planned.
A design is not finished until its actions have been tested in the real world, under complex environmental forces and human behavior. In companies. The design has to satisfy the requirements of marketing, engineering, manufacturing, sales, customers, and all the unknown, unpredictable events of the world.
Designers must be part of a team that includes every discipline impacted by or controlling the design's implementation. It is only by knowing the different requirements beforehand that they can be properly satisfied, without destroying the integrity of the work. And it is only after the implementation has best thrououghly tested in the real world that one can safely let go and let it live its own life.
It’s time that we move from design to action: D=>A.
HCD => HCA+
Now put together the contents of this note.
We move from Human-Centered to Humanity-Centered. HC to HC+.
We move from Design to Action, D => A.
So we have moved from HCD to HCA+
I agree with you, Professor, and while reading this, I kept thinking of one of Dieter Rams's ten principles of good design, that design should be long-lasting, and his explicit opposition to planned obsolescence. I'm against it too, and it has a direct impact on our ecology. We don't need new infrastructure to bring this back. We knew how to do this decades ago and collectively walked away from it. If designers simply decide to return to it, that alone slows the damage.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've written - but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the term "more-than-human". I've been using it to represent exactly what you intend to with the word "humanity", but I'd be interested to know whether you think using the latter still inadvertently encourages a human-centred rhetoric?