
Some doubts about human-centered design - tobr
https://www.jussipasanen.com/human-centred-design-considered-harmful/
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davidwitt415
While I appreciate the overall critique, the author is really misrepresenting
what HCD is by referring to it out of context, far beyond what is was
originally meant for by its originator, Alan Cooper. As a thought experiment,
try replacing 'HCD' with 'computers' in the article, and there is really no
difference in how it reads. What this means is that HCD is a tool, and can be
used for any purpose, good or bad, by those that wield the power. And by that
phrase, I certainly am not referring to the designers, but those who have the
capital and call the shots.

To look at it another way, I think the recent Boeing fiasco is a relevant
case. It wasn't the engineers who designed the system that were to blame, it
was management who corrupted the process towards their own ends. Ethics and
the profit motive are difficult to balance, and that goes way beyond a
designer's methodology.

~~~
falcongod082
Ethics and profit motive are easy to balance, justification takes a few
paragraphs.

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randogogogo
I see this author making a lot of strong cases against unethical business
practices where human center design is involved, but it doesn't make the case
well enough that human centered design itself is harmful. If anything it makes
the case that vanilla anthropocentrism is. Am I missing a stronger connection?

~~~
gwbas1c
Honestly, I don't get the point. Maybe I skimmed the article too fast?

> We follow an approach called Human Centred Design, which involves ‘the human
> perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process’.

Based on that definition, it seems like "Human Centered Design" is just a
platitude.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
More of a fig leaf. It's more like "Profit Centred Design Optimised to Extract
Maximum Value from Human Users."

Genuine Human Centred Design would create and enhance communities of interest
with broader and more humane motivations than corporate profit-seeking.

Unsurprisingly it's rare in corporate projects, and in small-developer
projects that ape corporate attitudes.

But it does exist outside of them.

Where I disagree is the notion that design has to be one or the other. I
suspect it's more like a continuum, with the worst dark patterns at one
extreme, and various not-for-profit empowering and educational apps and
projects at the other - the ideal HCD project being a UI/UX that models and
encourages humane, "clean", mutually beneficial, and non-exploitative
interactions in a way that users instantly feel comfortable with and want to
use.

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Nasrudith
I can't help but ask if human centric design means anything at all given the
objections and examples of the failings are outright contradictory to the
thesis. An actual arguement against it would be if human centered design
resulted in far worse performance to make it easy to understand - akin to
using masses of factory workers manufacturing with hand drills because it is
simpler to understand than a drill press.

The anthrocentrism arguement is downright painfully inane. The issue isn't
that it improves things for humans but that it causes environmental damage!

To provide a biting but illustrative example toliet paper improves things for
humans. Using live endangered sea birds as toliet paper wouldn't make things
better for the environment but worse for both humans and the environment.

~~~
htek
I think perhaps you've misunderstood the article. If I understand it
correctly, human centered design as it is currently employed is only concerned
with enabling transactions, whether it is Amazon's 1-click purchase button, or
Uber making it easy to get a ride without trying to find a taxi. Negative
externalities like Amazon and Uber causing increased traffic and pollution
when its customers use their services.

The article makes the argument that it is the anthropocentricity of human
centered design that allows these companies to completely ignore the impacts
on the environment and, in the long run, ironically, on the humans the design
is supposed to focus on. I think it is probably an unnecessary part of the
argument, as capitalism itself is quite good at incentivizing companies to
ignore pesky negative externalities as long as they can get away with it.

Sorry, I don't understand your example. Actually, toilet paper does not
improve things for humans, other than the act of using it for its purpose
(which if you have a bidet, you don't need toilet paper). Toilet paper causes
a great deal of environmental damage, from destroying Canadian forests [1] to,
of course, climate change. [2]

1\. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/canada-
boreal-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/canada-boreal-
forest-toilet-paper-us-climate-change-impact-report)

2\. [https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/toilet-paper-
enviro...](https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/toilet-paper-environment-
usage/)

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ianbicking
This almost feels like a Marxist critique of human centered design: while we
all talk about the virtues of this design process, the real power lies only in
the underlying economics. Virtue itself is a distraction that keeps us from
engaging with the dispassionate mechanisms of profit that truly drive what
does and does not exist.

That's a little over the top, and maybe the entire article is a little over
the top, but it's also a useful perspective. Like many virtue-centered value
systems, people try to bring these into business and then are frustrated when
everyone says they care and yet nothing happens. On a personal level people DO
care (even top executives!), but institutions have structures to insulate
themselves from individual interests. Things like KPIs are there to keep
individuals from accidentally projecting their own desires and sense of virtue
onto the company.

If, despite all of this, you still wish to project your own desires onto the
company, then it may be best to do so with a degree of cynicism. The article
demonstrates such cynicism. It might additionally be useful to frame your own
desires as subversive, to acknowledge that they are not prime motivators.
Maybe they can be subordinate to the prime motivators of the company... but
maybe not even that. Making the argument might itself be a form of subversive
behavior.

~~~
falcongod082
economics is a virtue-centered value system, in fact it chooses the definition
of value based on the politics of the economist.

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nine_k
In short, we humans seem to not completely like ourselves, or, rather, tend to
see our own shortcomings. (Which is good.)

This is why a design that exploits human nature to the fullest also exploits
the parts of the nature we don't like in ourselves but have trouble fighting,
like greed, or laziness, or selfishness, etc.

So I suspect we'll see a rise of "ethical design", which pushes us to exercise
our best qualities (as designers see them) and tries to downplay and suppress
the worse qualities (again, based on the designers' view of ethics).
Ironically, a conspicuous use of such ethical design could also be fueled by
virtue signaling, a negative trait from the (designers') ethical standpoint.

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jchook
“Build homes for people, not cars” gets me very excited, but I think this
article asks us to add a couple more conscious variables — “build
environmentally symbiotic and financially sustainable homes for people, not
cars”.

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zzo38computer
Human is not the most important things in the universe. It is necessary to
avoid the idea that it is the most important things in universe.

However, business is not the most important things in the universe either.
Love of money is the root of all evil.

Also, it is not quite clear to me what "human centred design" is meaning,
exactly.

I can also comment about the first paragraph: Much of the newer software isn't
actually that good user interfaces design, and also omits stuff that is good
to have, and if the user has not read the instructions then they may easily
make a mistake that is their own mistake, I think. (I think the better design
is you have enough ropes to hang yourself, and also a few more just in case.
It should not stop the user to do a stupid thing because then it prevents a
good thing from being done, also.)

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juskrey
Reality: revenue increase goals don't always align with revenue increase.

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Rainymood
>We can no longer keep solving human problems at the expense of the living
planet.

We can't? Watch us do it. I found the article rather weak. As long as behavior
is not incentivised, we won't do it. Humans are simple, but not easy.

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deanebarker
Was anyone else bothered by the persistent misspelling? I thought it was just
the HN title, but it was throughout the entire article.

~~~
journalctl
“centre” is the British English spelling of “center”.

