Human-centred decisions
Amid technology-focused hype cycles, the job of human-centred practitioners is to remind everyone: the main reason people use technology is to enhance our connections with other humans in the real world.
I have long felt uneasy about modern occupations associating themselves with high-status traditional professions. This has been brought into sharp focus for me since I started a role last year focusing heavily on information architecture, to the annoyance of my wife Alex, who is an actual architect.
Information has become the forgotten half in “information technology”. Tech companies are struggling because they aren’t focusing on the human problems they need to solve.
I went to just two concerts in 2023, and they were both of Pulp’s performances in Scotland.
Britpop has been having a moment again this summer, prompting investigations into why the scene fizzled out. The conventional explanations are unconvincing. Electronic music tells us why.
1215 AM. Not quarter past midnight, but a radio frequency familiar to generations (although perhaps not any of the younger ones). Today it has stopped broadcasting. As AM radio slowly disappears, a bit of British folklore goes with it.
I have complicated feelings about the apparent imminent demise of Twitter in the hands of a reckless owner.
What’s most surprising about the metaverse is just how lacking in ambition it is. This is a half-hearted rehash of a 30-year-old idea.
Consistency is often seen as a slam-dunk argument in favour of an initiative. But if you don’t know what you want to a design to be consistent with — and why — then consistency risks confusing your users.
Many designers talk about user-centred design. But design approaches alone aren’t sufficient to ensure we are human-centred. Design approaches can be used carelessly — or even maliciously — to centre the designer and sideline the user.
Innovation falls flat when it doesn’t respond to a human need. Use human-centred approaches to understand people’s fundamental motivations and needs. These are the stabilising forces for innovation.
It is difficult to find a phrase that exactly describes my work and the way I approach it. I’ve started to talk about human-centred approaches. This post explains what I mean by that.
