Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered

The new book by Donald Norman, commonly referred to as one of the fathers of Human Centric Design [Norman, Verganti, 2014], builds on the idea of Human-centred design to expand to a humanity-centred design level. It suggests that, in order for designers to have a more comprehensive understanding of their responsibility to the people they design for, they should embrace the need for a transition that moves away from user/people/ human-centred design to welcome an eco-systemic approach to humanity. Solving the needs of a single group of people does in fact damage the rest of the ecosystem, but history has shown us that the designers are rarely aware of this: this is due to a series of corrupting factors, such as our western-influenced mono-cultures, our economic and geopolitical systems, as well as the Internet itself which are all sources of distortion of reality [Costanza-Chock, 2018]. Humanity-centred design could be an effective strategy to overcome the status quo and save the planet: Norman states that the pure principle of sustainability is no longer enough, as to sustain means to preserve the current state of the planet which is in fact endangered and needs to be improved [Bin Ahsan, 2023]. Norman starts from the already well-known principles of the human-centred approach [Norman, 2005], but he adds a fifth pillar to the methodology: its focus on the full ecosystem of people, all other living things, and the natural environment that can bring about genuine change and provide real solutions to major issues harming our planet and the survival of our species. In this context, rather than forcing answers on the community, professional designers should act as facilitator, designing with the communities and not for them.