Touch Grass: Why Human-Centered Design is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI
Keeping the Human Centered in the Design
As artificial intelligence accelerates how we build the digital world, it’s possible that the most radical, and arguably, necessary thing a digital designer can do is step outside and literally ‘touch grass’ (or a tree, or a river or…).
Before I was managing tech consulting teams or building websites for small businesses, I earned a Master's in Photography. This was back in the early 00’s during the tumultuous, exciting analog-to-digital transition. That was a radical shift in technology processes and usual thinking and I am observing many parallels today. As the design landscape shifts, I find myself contemplating what the future holds for website design, small businesses, and human creativity.
The Reality of the Efficiency Promise
Being embedded in tech throughout much of my career, I saw AI come up quickly and its serious impact on the industry in both positive and negative ways. Specifically, there were lots of promises to make everything just generally better and more efficient while simultaneously somehow rationalizing the massive number of layoffs, organizational changes, and downsizing that were (and still are) prevalent. AI tech is still quickly evolving while becoming more and more accessible to all sectors, including individuals and small businesses. But there is still significant confusion around the quickly changing platforms, toolsets, and capabilities, and how best to implement them.
I recall the moment AI became kinda ‘real’ for my own work when I was able to write some small code scripts in an hour instead of the 2+ days it would surely have taken as a non-developer. It opened up the possibilities for me that included leaning into an experience of simultaneous learning and creativity while solving a technical challenge. This is amazingly useful and I will continue to embrace this tool-like approach, even with the lingering feeling of having cheated somehow.
The Uncanniness of Automated Design
From a design perspective, the stuff we create (in any field) is made ultimately for human users, so ideally there should be a strong human influence on the design itself. Without that nuanced human-first aspect, the end product is off in an uncanny way—sometimes more and sometimes less—but always there in the background of the user experience. I am not really talking about the big hallucinations like extra fingers or melting watches but rather, a more subtle ‘otherness’ that just doesn’t sit right and is not always even exactly identifiable. This uncanny feeling raises a feeling of disquiet in me (and many others) concerned for the future of visual communication.
There is an essence of being human and staying grounded in people-to-people interactions (even if they are mediated by technology like a website) that emphatically must continue to come through in our collective design work. And when it does come through, I hope it will resonate just a little more than the pure generated content that is spun up primarily for algorithms.
We are fast approaching a time when the manipulation of all website content happens for all users on an individual, per-user, per-second basis, and this will dramatically change how we interact with the web and further exacerbate the trouble we are having distinguishing between what we understand to be true or false. This leaves us with an open question:
How can human-led design continue to build and maintain trust? How does it prove its worth?
The Real & Creative Human at the Center
The part of being human that is most vital to protect is our beautiful capacity for creative insight and problem-solving. At a species level, we’ve certainly abused our intelligence to cause harm (to the earth, to each other, to other species) rather than good.. But at the individual level, humans are capable of creating pure, transcendent joy and amazing experiences.
A Jasper Johns painting, the elegance of an ancient carved Buddha figure, the precise sentence structure of novelist Hilary Mantel, or a raw photograph by Gordon Parks, (among countless other examples) are, at their core, utterly human. They possess the rare ability to connect one person to another across culture, time, space, and language. Will purely generated content ever achieve that?
To keep myself grounded, and combat the undercurrent of existential dread, I actively make space for non-mediated, human-centric experiences:
- Physicality: I do manual work and exercise to keep my body anchored in reality.
- Analog Tools: I use pencil and paper to brainstorm, take notes, or just express emotions without words.
- Nature: I get outside daily to appreciate the actual environment; trees in the wind, the clouds, the heat, and the cold.
Honestly, it worries me that I have to remind myself to do this. What happens if we stop making the effort? What about my ten-year-old son, or future generations who won't even have a baseline of the analog world to remember and fight for?
Designing for the Human on the Other Side
Despite my warnings, I do have hope. There will always be a creative core in us. If we take the time to express ourselves, listen openly, and actively create, we can positively influence the direction of technology rather than letting it dictate us. We don't have to lose sight of each other and the critical, natural, earth systems that fundamentally sustain us. This hope helps me stay on track as a web designer and business consultant.
During this time when AI can generate a website in seconds, the internet is becoming crowded with the uncanny designs I mentioned earlier. To stand out and build trust, a business needs more than just basic visual acumen. It needs strategic design thinking rooted in real human connection.
Whether we are launching a new e-commerce site, streamlining a marketing campaign, or designing a brand identity, the goal must remain unchanged: Center the design around the living, breathing human on the other side of the screen.
