Drawn to the lofty goal of making technology that benefits humanity, I often overlooked the value of making good practical tools. Critical of this viewpoint, I wanted to find definitions to describe the kind of technology I was pursuing and why.
I had questions:
- Is there a name for technology that “changes the world!”
- Is it people-first, human-centered, human-centric?
- Was this really the only technology that was worthy of making?
- Surely there are practical products that are fun to make, but what distinguishes them from others? What makes them so lovely? 😍
After my exploration, dissatisfaction with available definitions, and some late-night pondering, I coined the term “human-friendly” technology to capture making good, practical tools. Then I critically altered “human-centered” technology to represent extremely humanitarian technology, like… it should probably save lives.
In this post, I will compare them and make claims about them for fun. With any luck, we should arrive at the conclusion that human-friendly technology is cool, too. As opposed to only validating projects that are world-changing and life-saving. 🙄
The definitions of “human-centered technology” are not very satisfying.
I say this because outside of a Google AI-generated definition and a Wikipedia page, most primary results push you towards paid courses about human-centered design. This philosophy puts humans at the center of the design process. However, I do not like that there’s not much emphasis on putting humans at the center of the end goal of the designed product.
Human-centered technology (technology made with a human-centered design approach) seemed to get more attention once generative AI flooded the market. Concerns arose over making technology align with human values, which was a start toward examining technology’s impact on humanity.
I insist on viewing human-centered technology as an approach that considers outcomes as much as it does the building process.
In my opinion, human-centered technology must benefit humanity (e.g., saving lives). However, we cannot rely solely on good intentions and design processes to produce humanitarian software. We need to set human-oriented product end goals and analyze their outcomes. Taking a holistic approach to understanding technology’s impact on people should be required to be “human-centered.”
Additionally, human-centered technology should consider what it is like for the people who make and sell it. It’s not enough to view the end product as human-centered if the lives of the people involved are not prioritized.
Lastly, technology that “benefits humanity” is usually subjective.
Earlier, I used “saves lives” as an example of an end goal for human-centered technology because it is fairly objective (except when you ask whose lives are prioritized?
However, when we make the goal for human-centered technology something like “improve lives,” it’s subjective. It will depend on what is meant by “improvement.” For example, Elon Musk thinks we will prefer to use telepathy to communicate with each other; with that preference so strong, he thinks speech will become obsolete. Is this really an improvement?!
If this all sounds complicated, it is. Making human-centered technology with my strict definition is hard, and I wrote about that, too.
Anyway 😅, this is my final definition of it:
👶 Human-centered technology prioritizes people, focusing on human experience, preferences, and benefits. Many definitions online are elusive and promote paid courses on human-centered design. My view is that it should save lives or benefit humanity, especially the end-product it delivers. For example, Climate Tech, Green Tech, Health Tech, etc.
Do you have a different opinion on human-centered technology or design? I bet. Write about it and tell me using this form below!
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I coined human-friendly technology to distinguish it from human-centered.
I view it with a slightly less strict lens than human-centered technology, mainly pertaining to the goal of the end product. While I view human-centered technology as requiring humanitarian benefit, I think human-friendly technology is about providing good, practical solutions. These solutions could be tools that solve or facilitate ordinary, niche, or workflow-related challenges.
Here’s my definition:
👩🌾 Human-friendly Technology is a phrase I coined to emphasize a human-first approach to making practical technology that does not require “save the world” outcomes. I think it is done through a long-term commitment to values and establishing accountability systems to uphold them, like “Building in Public”.
Many of the human-centered design philosophies hold true in human-friendly technology.
Since the specifics of human-centered design are behind paywalls, I may have to refer to Wikipedia for the specifics of human-centered design. I did really enjoy this critique of it:
human-centered design often considers context, but does not offer tailored approaches for very specific groups of people
Alternatively, I came up with some additive ways to define and distinguish human-friendly tech from regular, old junky tech.
As with human-centered technology, I still insist that the people who are involved in a product—customers, builders, and sellers—be considered and their experiences prioritized. It’s hard to pitch a product as human-friendly if people are being harmed or negatively impacted as a result.
These are my other tenets of human-friendly technology:
- longevity – plan to be in business for a long time, no fast exits or quick buck to be made
- transparency – forth-coming about roadmap, obstacles, goals, processes
- accountability – has systems in place to ensure values and mission guide the product or company
- has mission and values – and is guided by them (though not very impactful without accountability)
I write about evaluating companies and products based on their business model, values, and mission because I think adherence to these leads to human-friendly technology. They are probably cool places to work.
Anyone can build human-friendly technology, not just companies. Start by solving smaller, niche human problems.
In a previous post, I claimed that with good software skills, you can choose what industries you work in. That’s because software skills are useful in almost any industry. If you look beyond the hard skills of making software and start to develop product development, distribution, and marketing skills, you can make your own products for smaller niches. With 8+ billion people on the planet, it’s possible that the “small” niche is not that small, actually. When you get product-market-fit down, you may start to see how important your technology is to people.
Technology can be wildly unfriendly 🙁
Apps typically require consistent usage to support their costs, but what if the problem was solved by eventually not using the app at all? For example, social connection-based apps ironically do not increase your number of friends or make you feel good about connecting with others.
Instead they feel competitive and encourage its users to be “chronically online” curating their digital image. If these apps were good connectors, then we would hear in person about people making friends online. It’s also very telling that the few times it does happen, people grimace as the practice is typically unsafe, and the story is riddled with unnecessary shame.
Unfortunately, many will still want to solve these problems with technology because there can be a lot of money in it (think scalability and reach), especially where there is desperation for solutions (here’s looking at you, dating apps!). I find these tend to be predatory. They use human psychology against their users to create addictive software based on FOMO and dopamine hits – usually coupled with in-app purchasing. Not human-friendly technology!
To reiterate, the product should not contradict what would truly solve a person’s problem.
So, when did you notice that technology was not human-friendly? What’s an example of something you’ve encountered recently? Can you think of a way to make it better and become human-friendly?
Join the conversation, write about it, and I will link to it! I have more prompts, too (below conversation).
