The rush to advocating a “human-centred” approach, rather than consumer-oriented, is likely driven by the recent “hype” in design thinking. It’s a hype because I can foresee people jumping on another bandwagon when it emerges. Why? Because, just like the “hypes” around data analytics or behavioural science, people who are claiming to be experts, or even evangelists, of design thinking seldom spend more than just a coursera or IDEO course to become one. People also tend to pick and choose whatever they think are trendy or would make them look smart, but ignoring/neglecting the others — such as basics like the order of the questions in interviews because wrong ordering may limit respondents/users to a certain chain of thoughts.
But this does not bother me as much as the lack of consideration of the appropriateness of the “human-centred” approach itself. Despite the pandemic and increasing episodes of extreme weather due to climage change, the very reason of which is humans being self-centred, a “human-centred” approach is narrow and selfish. Such siloed views of what consumers’ insights should mean — views that do not take into account of the environment and social impacts — are yet another “hype” and will likely soon be replaced by yet another bandwagon when one appears.
Note: This post originally appears on my Linkedin.
