Is it time to rethink UX and PX? In the context of UX, the word “user” is dehumanising, whilst the “product” in PX omits the user altogether. How about we start designing for Human Experience?
Our relationship with tech is so integrated, it’s impossible to separate us from our technology. And that’s before taking physical augmentation into consideration. Current thinking around how people experience products should go further to encompass how people experience themselves.
When Human Experience is at it’s optimum, people feel “more me…” an enhanced and better version of themselves. We made these conclusions following our conversations with real people at the frontier of human-tech fusion – folks with amazing augmentations like bionic limbs and deep brain stimulation.
This study into “Augmentality” led us to a universal tech framework. An optimal Human Experience is the result of a combination of three interlinking factors:
- Expansion: Exactly what you’d expect of any augmentation – capabilities you didn’t have before.
- Empowerment: These new expanded capabilities put you in control of yourself. Body, brain, identity, life.
- Normalisation: You and the people around you feel (at the very least) comfortable with the different capabilities, whatever the source or however they manifest.
These things, working in harmony, give people true enhancements, so the opportunities for Human Experiences go deeper than tech – it’s the ultimate in human centred design.
