The shift from human-centered to resource-centered design
Eric Wilmot writes on Greener Design on how to design for a post-consumption society. And an excellent article it is.
“The current interpretation of human-centered has expanded to indulge human desires at the expense of other equally critical considerations. This is a dangerous interpretation that has become default for many leading academic and professional creative practices. Don Norman explains the main concern of such unquestioning adoption of human centered approaches: “The focus upon individual people (or groups) might improve things for them at the cost of making it worse for others.”
In reality, our human-centeredness has driven us to the brink of unsustainable lifestyle through the strain our over-consumption is putting on our natural resources, and may represent the largest self-inflicted problem a species has ever created for itself short of Easter Island.”
