written by Tjerk Dijkstra

Lately I see too many concepts that respond in a questionable way to our human flaws. With services that rely on guilt, scarcity, laziness and other human imperfections. A taxi service that becomes more expensive when the battery of your phone is almost empty, prices of hotel rooms that skyrocket when you visit the website more often, insurances that are going to determine premiums based on possible discriminatory algorithms that no one really understands, a service that lets someone cycle to your house for less than minimum wage for a forgotten carton of milk. Is that consciously designed, or did that arise unconsciously? If I see these examples passing by then I think: “We as (future) designers can do better, right?”

Tjerk Dijkstra demands immediate improvement of everything.¹

Human-centered design. It sounds so obvious. Of course you make something for a human. But what exactly does that mean? When you look at humans in the cognitive field, you can conclude that we as humanity have our pitfalls. We are impulsive, influenceable, predictable, lazy, heavy thinking takes effort and we are simply programmed to avoid that thinking as much as possible. So the question is: how are you going to design for that?

mensgericht ontwerpen

Good designing, go talk to people.

At CMD LWD designing for humans is central. I myself describe designing as an iterative process where you are looking for what works. A balance between zooming in and out and framing to then take a distance and reflect on what you are designing. In practice this means making something quickly. Putting something into the world and regularly falling on your face because you find out that you are not making the impact you wanted to make. And really, but then really understand for whom you are making something. Because we, students and also teachers, make a lot at CMD. Websites, campaigns, brands, music, films, games and so much more. When you design these interventions, you see how quickly you can make an impact in the everyday life of every human. Did we come up with this ourselves? No. We stand on the shoulders of the designers before us. This philosophy is also called human-centered design. That is what it is all about for us.

Besides our flaws, as humanity we are also creative, ingenious, funny, crazy, social and – certainly at CMD – real nerds.

So it is up to us as a new generation of designers to consciously think about impact and value of the everyday things that we are allowed to design for people.

Beautiful examples of this are people who dare to design with clear restrictions. Because where there are restrictions, our ingenuity and perseverance blossom. There are entrepreneurs like Stefan Wobben who say: “I want to make a shoe that is 100% vegan, fair, biodegradable and plastic-free.” then it is persevering, biting into it and especially making prototypes that prove that it is possible.

Other examples such as a packaging-free supermarket or a car that really only drives on the power of the sun.


CMD LWD alumnus Douwe Schilstra also shows how human-centered design works in practice. His graduation work focuses on people with low literacy skills. Without talking to this target group, he would probably never have come to a working prototype. → Read Douwe's story here

Because human-centered design is also daring to put down a product with an outspoken opinion. Finding that voice or opinion I think is an important part of our education, you must always dare to ask the question, why does someone, target group or client, do what they do? And is that good, or can it be better. Nowadays everything you can think of can be designed, but should it be?

There are too many things in this world that have been thought about too little or not at all. Or it has been thought about well precisely to disguise the adverse effects so that money can be made. That is why we ask our students precisely the question: do you as a designer want to cooperate with that?

The professional field throws a target group into the design process too quickly.

A target group gives direction and focus. In practice we unfortunately often see that a target group is reduced to a persona. A set of demographic data, full of assumptions. Not much more than a mediocre excuse not to really listen to what human behavior is, where you offer value. When you are inventing a person to validate the concept, an alarm bell should really start ringing. Please go talk to real people and design for us, with all our flaws.