Design Thinking And Our Enhanced Humanness

About 10 years ago - in this very blog - I coined the term: frictionless sharing. The term never went viral, but some readers did make note of it and some even used it. With that term I was attempting to predict the day when we would share media and data in a matter of nano-seconds thanks to our smartphones and enhanced UX’s designed to do just that. More sharing means more attention on web sites, which in turn means more advertising served. And, well, here we are.  It has come to pass.

We are now perhaps witnessing an emerging trend that may go the other way. I am starting to sense some people sharing less due to the concern with unsecure behavioral data fusing with analytics, and of course, the ever-present growing concern of big brother and AI tracking what we are saying, publishing and doing. Perhaps, then, it is time for a new term to be coined: contextual sharing. That is a propensity to share less via a more targeted approach and to those that are closest to us.

Of course we know that the reduction of friction in interactive human designs, is where the gold is in terms of innovation. Per above rendering, it has been immensely profitable for companies such as Google and Facebook.

But detecting “relevant” friction that may be useful in the design of a new product or service requires the ability for designers to truly see amongst other skills. That is, to observe with a discerning mindset.

In my experience many of us have the ability to do so. But in many of us it is lying dormant, subjugated by our inattention caused by our hyper attention (ironically enough) to our virtual reality screen that our phones have become. This new frictionless, digital life behavior, is killing our observations skills in many of us.

Design thinking is an antidote to this ailment. I have witnessed how the willing students of design thinking that I have taught, have awakened their power to observe with purpose and have become ardent practitioners in the art of seeing and sensing customer need. Frankly, observing with intent can be quite a "zenful" experience. But for us to reach that state, the mind has to unleash its empathy coefficient. And here is the ultimate and unexpected benefit of adopting a design thinking mindset. At the core of it all, design thinking makes us better humans by making us more empathetic.

Human centric observation leads to enhanced empathy. Enhanced empathy leads to heightened states of awareness, which awakens our sense of observation and sensing. Our enhanced senses lead to better identification of friction in human designs.