Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo on Unsplash

By now, I’m sure everyone has seen the Social Dilemma. If not, I encourage you to check it out. It is a documentary full of product designers and engineers who have invented amazing technologies and algorithms and are now very worried that their creations may be contributing to global chaos. This chaos includes things like infinite scroll, Humans being addicted to social media, obsessed with their image, feeling lonely, isolated, or depressed about how many likes they receive, and, above all, mass disinformation and Humans not being able to distinguish truth from falsehoods. And somehow, as dark as all of this could seem, it actually made me chuckle because many of us (designers) have known that we would end up here.

As a UI/UX designer, or a person who spends most of their time designing applications based on how Humans interact with them, there is this ongoing conversation about the necessity for Human-Centered design. As a concept, yes, I find it to be very useful. However, to put it plainly, as machine learning and artificial intelligence become more heavily used in the realm of technology, I do not think we can fully rely on Human-Centered design when products around the world are simultaneously designing Human behavior.

To gain a sense of the possibilities and potential limitations of any methodology, as a thinker who is deeply invested in understanding the ideas behind the language we use, I would first have to ask exactly what does it mean to be Human? That is to say that before I jump on the bandwagon for HCD, I would have to analyze the formation of the Human itself. That would lead to a deeper study of exactly who has shaped those ideas, what the Human is categorized by, and who falls into the category of the Human. Even more, I would probably be led to consider the ways that being Human has shown up for me and my particular species, or should I say race, of people.

My curiosity would lead me to find that as a Black person, enjoying the fullness of being or being engaged as a Human has been a challenge for centuries. This is partially because there have been Black people before me that were actually considered 3/5ths Human. As most of us who take any interest in history understand, there were also extensive scientific studies that were done to suggest that Humans are actually not all fully Human but different species, or races, with some (usually White/European) being higher in the ranking order as more rational, civilized, conscious, or more intelligent, while others (usually Black/African) fell below and beneath with reasons such as being irrational, or “void of genius”, animal-like, and therefore incapable of being civilized. This thinking served to justify African people being made property, or capital, and later deemed 3/5ths Human — solely for the purpose of Southern states to gain more electoral power, not because of any actual desire to discard this distorted view of African people. Note: I do not need to argue whether that mode of thinking was true or not, but we could agree that it has had significant implications for how Humans have navigated life on this planet and, more specifically, in this nation.

My point here is simple: When we say we wish to center Humans, I would call us to question what type of Humans we are centering. In the West, I would argue that we are speaking of a specific version of the Human or homo economicus — the economic man, with consistent and stable preferences; he is entirely forward-looking, and pursues only his own self-interest — and by that definition, this may be a very bad idea.

When we base our outcomes solely on the desires and wishes of the Human rather than the environments, communities, and planet they live in, while also creating behaviors so that they will consume our products more, thereby making us more money, there is a very obvious path to chaos.

Because of this, it brings me to a list of questions for you to ponder on your own time:

• Do we as product makers consider the consequences of ignoring Humans’ relationships to each other, their communities, their planet?
• Do we actually consider the environments in which people live and how that may shape or inform their decisions in relation to using our products?
• Do we consider that vulnerable populations (elderly, youth, disabled, LGBTQIA+, and immigrant communities) dis/engage with our products based on its ability to provide privacy and security?
• Do we consider disabled folks’ experiences to make our products accessible first and not merely as an add-on?
• Do we consider the waste that is created when we design products based on short-lived trends that dissipate when the trend is no longer trending?
• Do we consider the impact that disinformation and advertisement have on the state of the planet or capitalism and its power to deplete natural resources (ie. the Amazon) while we also empower everyone to buy, buy, buy, on Amazon?

Many of these things are connected directly to Human behavior and are a result of what happens when we only focus our efforts on Human desires. And, I think, that most of us may not know exactly what we want because the products we use are telling us instead.

I do not know that it will hurt us all, but some of us will be more impacted by these shifts than others. One thing that I am confident in is that the planet will outlast us. My hope and call to action is that we find our way to designing and building sustainable, usable, and accessible products that take into consideration the world’s people, places, and things — our future depends on it.

The UX Collective donates US$1 for each article published on our platform. This story contributed to Bay Area Black Designers: a professional development community for Black people who are digital designers and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area. By joining together in community, members share inspiration, connection, peer mentorship, professional development, resources, feedback, support, and resilience. Silence against systemic racism is not an option. Build the design community you believe in.