[Music]
what if we could free our minds in 1923
a futurist from Spain named vasily omar
she wrote that the futurist city will
succeed in a generating more elastic and
active minds the will shall be broken up
into new stimuli desires will multiply
with so many irresistible organisms
invading every beam with a kind of
invigorating and beneficial injection a
new aspect of the city and home will
without doubt create a new spirit and a
new regime of life among men fast
forward 100 years 100 years to the
present day and we certainly live in a
different world than Vassiliou lived in
1923 and I’m astounded by the accuracy
of his prediction in our technological
world what we consume every day is
certainly like an invigorating injection
constant streams of information and
entertainment they satisfy our minds
they let our markets run at hyperspeed
and they give us social connection and
vigilia was right that the spirit of the
digital age would be very different than
the spirit of the analog world it’s
hyper connected hyper transparent and
hyper productive the only thing I’m not
sure I agree with from virgilia’s
prediction is if in fact it is all
beneficial I think there are two sides
of the coin on one side we have what
we’re doing today which is a really
heavy focus on consumer products it’s
not a bad thing in fact it’s amazing
it’s transformational and it’s changing
the ways that we behave and
interact but I’m more interested in the
other side of the coin the other side of
the coin focuses a little bit more on
non consumer technologies and breaks the
frame about how we’ve assumed we should
interact in society my wish for design
my wish for the direction of design is
that it is inspired by a deep love for
human interaction and in deep love for
our planet and that we can use our
design research toolkit to achieve that
what’s amazing is that our design
research toolkit is expanding we now use
neuroscience to be able to understand
how you feel when you’re looking at a
technology your attention when you’re
looking at a technology and your
cognitive load meaning how hard you have
to think to solve a problem but my wish
is that we focus a little bit more on
the mechanics of our system and a little
bit less on the look and feel and the
packaging of the products we make so
that we can collaborate to make
technologies that help us steward our
planet and help us create a system that
is more efficient and helps us save
money by doing so I want you to know
that I think we’re all cyborgs this is
very important it is an assumption of
this talk a cyborg is something that has
added a component to your body in order
to improve your outcomes or to enhance
your performance over the years humans
have built layers of tools in order to
make us more productive from the wheel
to the chair
bicycles typewriters those tools are not
embedded in our bodies and they do not
make us cyborgs but they do make us more
productive other tools do make us
cyborgs because they’re embedded in our
bodies like hearing aids like prosthetic
legs and even pacemakers and now we’ve
added layers of digital tools around us
as well computers tablets smartphones
that are becoming increasing
embedded in our bodies by either always
being in her pockets on our wrists or
even embedded via microchip everyone
take out your phone for a second and
hold it up
oh wait it’s okay we got time
can the cameras go over a bit this is
fantastic
look at this look at me on stage just
next to all of these cyborgs when you
woke up this morning did you check your
phone did you check your phone before
you fell asleep last night was your
phone in your pocket all day you are not
technically a cyborg but you are very
close to a cyborg and it’s not all bad
okay if I’m in the city I can find where
I am and want and where I want to go
within 10 seconds with zero context
using Google Maps that’s amazing that
enhances my performance if you ask me a
question I can learn 10 new facts in 30
seconds on Google search that improves
my outcomes
I can crowdsource the best restaurant in
town or I can start a social revolution
on Facebook there are really positive
ways to be cyborgs and there are
negative ways to be cyborgs too I
recently saw a video about a man named
Isaiah Isaiah was born without a job
which means that he can’t speak so he
uses his phone to communicate with
people and he even writes songs and
produces songs being a cyborg
strengthens Isaiah but I also know Nancy
I’m sure many of you know Nancy
sometimes I’m Nancy Nancy is on her
phone all day and she frequents sites
like Instagram and Facebook where she
has shown ads that are tailored to her
interests and her emotional responses to
the platform and those ads are so
powerful that sometimes she buys things
that she doesn’t need and she’s addicted
to scrolling and clicking and liking and
posting sometimes Nancy is weakened by
being a cyborg she’s not building
meaningful social connection
and sometimes she’s spending money that
maybe she doesn’t have enter human
centered design I am a futurist and I’m
a human centered designer futurism is a
discipline where we plan for the future
and build products services governments
really anything that plans ahead for
changing trends in society and
disruptions and hopefully plants the
seeds for healthier lifestyles and more
sustainable technologies that can
withstand things like climate change on
the other side as a human centered
designer well human centered design at
its core just means leading with the
user which means before you go to build
something study the people that you want
to serve and make sure that you’re
building exactly the right thing that
solves their needs in its more robust
definition human centered design starts
with anthropology which is the study of
people and how we interact in society
and then add on design which is the art
of planning and creation and engineering
and business modeling and what you get
is this perfect storm of people working
across the disciplines all in an effort
to make things better for people and
human centered design is in its heyday
which is wonderful
because it is forcing people to ask
questions like what do people want and
how do people feel and what helps a
person and what hinders a person and in
human centered design we have all sorts
of tools to help us answer those
questions like ethnography and
interviews code designing products with
users and also testing those products on
users until we kind of work out the
gremlins and the cakes when we are
asking people about their lives in an
effort to make things better for them
what those people are doing is they’re
tapping into their conscious thoughts
conscious thoughts are things you’re
aware of like I’m hot right now and I’m
on stage and I’m nervous but conscious
thoughts are actually only 10% of your
brain the other 90% of
your thoughts are subconscious those are
things that are really hard to be aware
of like your anxiety levels your stress
levels and how hard you’re thinking at
any given time and it’s really hard to
self-report on those things if I ask you
a question because it’s really hard to
be consciously aware of exactly what
your anxiety level is or exactly how
hard you’re thinking well neuroscience
is helping us get a really good look
into those subconscious pieces of human
experiences and map them to technologies
so we can improve those technologies in
a much more nuanced way than we ever
could before doing three things using
eye trackers we can see exactly where a
user is looking at a technology using
monitors of your heart rate as well as
facial readers as well as measuring your
brainwaves we’re able to measure your
emotions so what you’re feeling and how
hard you’re feeling that and using all
of those same technologies in addition
to measuring your pupils and how much
they’re dilating we can measure how hard
you’re thinking all in an effort to
uncover that 90% of subconscious thought
your brains deep-ocean
we had a lot of things before
neuroscience
to help us understand it like
ethnography and observation but it’s
only now that we have science that helps
us track it directly to specific pieces
of technology and it’s fascinating it’s
like we’re space explorers and we’re on
this expedition to see what’s there but
just out of sight but back to the real
world and your phones I want to go back
to that question about the two sides of
the coin and whether we continue to
develop our technologies and our science
and service of consumer products or if
we redirect and focus more on non
consumer products and developing systems
that are more efficient I’m gonna give
you some examples on both sides right
now some of the ways that we’re using
design research in neuroscience like
what Facebook is doing to make the
platform more attention-grabbing and
addictive makes apps function like a
slot machine so that every time you pull
down and you scroll and you’re waiting
for that like your pleasure center is
going off and if you do that too
repeatedly like with any addiction your
pleasure center shrinks so you do it
more and you do it more and you do it
more and your pleasure center shrinks
and we can keep doing this we can keep
designing products that tap into users
emotional subconscious thoughts in order
to push products but it’s really a
dangerous game to play because what’s
happening there is that you’re removing
a certain amount of agency and
influencing users ever so subtly in the
decisions that they make but I want you
to know it’s not just company’s fault
it’s our fault it’s consumers fault and
why is that well we live in the freemium
economy which means that we’ve signed
contracts terms of terms and conditions
so that you don’t have to pay for
products in exchange for not paying what
you have agreed to is you’ve agreed to
listening and information sharing which
means that when you’re on your platforms
and your apps more often than not they
have access to your microphone and your
camera at almost all times they’re
listening without you knowing my
roommate recently told me a story about
her talking about running shoes all day
and then when she went on her Facebook
page she saw all of these ads about
running shoes and she said it was really
creepy but she didn’t want to delete
facebook but she did want to turn the
listening off I’ve experienced that
before too so the question is how do we
redirect where do we go well there are a
lot of ways that we can use our
technology and move our science in
different ways we just have to free
ourselves from the anchor we’ve created
let me give you some examples think
about people who work in finance
insurance and municipal management
there’s a lot of people who look at
dashboards all day called controllers
they’re coming through that information
in order to make the systems run well we
can use our science in order to simplify
those screens and make it so she can
accomplish the controller because she’s
a girl
she can accomplish tasks with the fewest
amount of clicks and in the least amount
of time that helps us make money by
making us more efficient right there are
so many places we can go and we’ve
anchored to this super boring screen
based view of the world and I really
hope we remove ourselves from it imagine
if instead of selling you ads your phone
told you to turn it off and drink some
water and go to yoga or if we used our
technologies to build
completely non screen tech there’s a lot
of it coming out now we just have to
invest in it for example there is a
fabric that uses your body heat to power
your own devices imagine if we tested
that on users to perfection and we went
totally off-grid the path we set now and
the choices we make on how we integrate
with technology because we have made a
choice we have said yes to cyborg ism we
have said yes to integrating with
technology but the choices that we make
they define what futures we set they
define what jobs we have in the future
they define what legacies we leave
behind
and they define what futures we leave
for our children and my hope is that if
we embrace being cyborgs let’s embrace
being better cyborgs let’s embrace being
cyborgs that are committed to loving
each other and supporting each other
being supportive removing obstacles so
that we can spend more meaningful time
in our physical environments so what I’d
like to you to do
take out your phone again you’re not
going to like me
now take out your phone and hold down
that power button and turn it off I’ll
wait and put it back in your pocket and
I challenge you to keep that off until
you go to bed tonight if you have to
turn it on to put on your alarm clock I
understand but other than that keep it
off and notice how good it feels from
now when you go to the reception when
you’re driving home in your car how good
it feels to just be instigating some
really meaningful connections with
someone that’s important to you but also
notice your addiction you’re gonna want
to reach in and turn it back on and
check in on that digital bubble and
that’s okay but that is a sign of our
collective societal addiction to the
products we’ve made so it’s really
important to leave with a few ideas
first I want us to be expected to act
ethically in the design world which
means I want all of the citizens of our
country to demand good design so that US
designers can supply good design because
we really want to supply good design the
other thing is that it’s super important
for us to remember that the bravest
thing we can do is to try and fail and
try and fail and try and fail and try
again
and as we fail be looking at how our
failures affect the people that we
wanted to serve and learning from that
that’s truly how we make things better
for people over time I want you to
embrace this awesome toolkit that we
have of design research and neuroscience
this very interesting science of
uncovering human needs to guide us to
the most impactful
and meaningful projects so we can
improve our world together for your mind
[Applause]
what if we could free our minds in 1923
a futurist from Spain named vasily omar
she wrote that the futurist city will
succeed in a generating more elastic and
active minds the will shall be broken up
into new stimuli desires will multiply
with so many irresistible organisms
invading every beam with a kind of
invigorating and beneficial injection a
new aspect of the city and home will
without doubt create a new spirit and a
new regime of life among men fast
forward 100 years 100 years to the
present day and we certainly live in a
different world than Vassiliou lived in
1923 and I’m astounded by the accuracy
of his prediction in our technological
world what we consume every day is
certainly like an invigorating injection
constant streams of information and
entertainment they satisfy our minds
they let our markets run at hyperspeed
and they give us social connection and
vigilia was right that the spirit of the
digital age would be very different than
the spirit of the analog world it’s
hyper connected hyper transparent and
hyper productive the only thing I’m not
sure I agree with from virgilia’s
prediction is if in fact it is all
beneficial I think there are two sides
of the coin on one side we have what
we’re doing today which is a really
heavy focus on consumer products it’s
not a bad thing in fact it’s amazing
it’s transformational and it’s changing
the ways that we behave and
interact but I’m more interested in the
other side of the coin the other side of
the coin focuses a little bit more on
non consumer technologies and breaks the
frame about how we’ve assumed we should
interact in society my wish for design
my wish for the direction of design is
that it is inspired by a deep love for
human interaction and in deep love for
our planet and that we can use our
design research toolkit to achieve that
what’s amazing is that our design
research toolkit is expanding we now use
neuroscience to be able to understand
how you feel when you’re looking at a
technology your attention when you’re
looking at a technology and your
cognitive load meaning how hard you have
to think to solve a problem but my wish
is that we focus a little bit more on
the mechanics of our system and a little
bit less on the look and feel and the
packaging of the products we make so
that we can collaborate to make
technologies that help us steward our
planet and help us create a system that
is more efficient and helps us save
money by doing so I want you to know
that I think we’re all cyborgs this is
very important it is an assumption of
this talk a cyborg is something that has
added a component to your body in order
to improve your outcomes or to enhance
your performance over the years humans
have built layers of tools in order to
make us more productive from the wheel
to the chair
bicycles typewriters those tools are not
embedded in our bodies and they do not
make us cyborgs but they do make us more
productive other tools do make us
cyborgs because they’re embedded in our
bodies like hearing aids like prosthetic
legs and even pacemakers and now we’ve
added layers of digital tools around us
as well computers tablets smartphones
that are becoming increasing
embedded in our bodies by either always
being in her pockets on our wrists or
even embedded via microchip everyone
take out your phone for a second and
hold it up
oh wait it’s okay we got time
can the cameras go over a bit this is
fantastic
look at this look at me on stage just
next to all of these cyborgs when you
woke up this morning did you check your
phone did you check your phone before
you fell asleep last night was your
phone in your pocket all day you are not
technically a cyborg but you are very
close to a cyborg and it’s not all bad
okay if I’m in the city I can find where
I am and want and where I want to go
within 10 seconds with zero context
using Google Maps that’s amazing that
enhances my performance if you ask me a
question I can learn 10 new facts in 30
seconds on Google search that improves
my outcomes
I can crowdsource the best restaurant in
town or I can start a social revolution
on Facebook there are really positive
ways to be cyborgs and there are
negative ways to be cyborgs too I
recently saw a video about a man named
Isaiah Isaiah was born without a job
which means that he can’t speak so he
uses his phone to communicate with
people and he even writes songs and
produces songs being a cyborg
strengthens Isaiah but I also know Nancy
I’m sure many of you know Nancy
sometimes I’m Nancy Nancy is on her
phone all day and she frequents sites
like Instagram and Facebook where she
has shown ads that are tailored to her
interests and her emotional responses to
the platform and those ads are so
powerful that sometimes she buys things
that she doesn’t need and she’s addicted
to scrolling and clicking and liking and
posting sometimes Nancy is weakened by
being a cyborg she’s not building
meaningful social connection
and sometimes she’s spending money that
maybe she doesn’t have enter human
centered design I am a futurist and I’m
a human centered designer futurism is a
discipline where we plan for the future
and build products services governments
really anything that plans ahead for
changing trends in society and
disruptions and hopefully plants the
seeds for healthier lifestyles and more
sustainable technologies that can
withstand things like climate change on
the other side as a human centered
designer well human centered design at
its core just means leading with the
user which means before you go to build
something study the people that you want
to serve and make sure that you’re
building exactly the right thing that
solves their needs in its more robust
definition human centered design starts
with anthropology which is the study of
people and how we interact in society
and then add on design which is the art
of planning and creation and engineering
and business modeling and what you get
is this perfect storm of people working
across the disciplines all in an effort
to make things better for people and
human centered design is in its heyday
which is wonderful
because it is forcing people to ask
questions like what do people want and
how do people feel and what helps a
person and what hinders a person and in
human centered design we have all sorts
of tools to help us answer those
questions like ethnography and
interviews code designing products with
users and also testing those products on
users until we kind of work out the
gremlins and the cakes when we are
asking people about their lives in an
effort to make things better for them
what those people are doing is they’re
tapping into their conscious thoughts
conscious thoughts are things you’re
aware of like I’m hot right now and I’m
on stage and I’m nervous but conscious
thoughts are actually only 10% of your
brain the other 90% of
your thoughts are subconscious those are
things that are really hard to be aware
of like your anxiety levels your stress
levels and how hard you’re thinking at
any given time and it’s really hard to
self-report on those things if I ask you
a question because it’s really hard to
be consciously aware of exactly what
your anxiety level is or exactly how
hard you’re thinking well neuroscience
is helping us get a really good look
into those subconscious pieces of human
experiences and map them to technologies
so we can improve those technologies in
a much more nuanced way than we ever
could before doing three things using
eye trackers we can see exactly where a
user is looking at a technology using
monitors of your heart rate as well as
facial readers as well as measuring your
brainwaves we’re able to measure your
emotions so what you’re feeling and how
hard you’re feeling that and using all
of those same technologies in addition
to measuring your pupils and how much
they’re dilating we can measure how hard
you’re thinking all in an effort to
uncover that 90% of subconscious thought
your brains deep-ocean
we had a lot of things before
neuroscience
to help us understand it like
ethnography and observation but it’s
only now that we have science that helps
us track it directly to specific pieces
of technology and it’s fascinating it’s
like we’re space explorers and we’re on
this expedition to see what’s there but
just out of sight but back to the real
world and your phones I want to go back
to that question about the two sides of
the coin and whether we continue to
develop our technologies and our science
and service of consumer products or if
we redirect and focus more on non
consumer products and developing systems
that are more efficient I’m gonna give
you some examples on both sides right
now some of the ways that we’re using
design research in neuroscience like
what Facebook is doing to make the
platform more attention-grabbing and
addictive makes apps function like a
slot machine so that every time you pull
down and you scroll and you’re waiting
for that like your pleasure center is
going off and if you do that too
repeatedly like with any addiction your
pleasure center shrinks so you do it
more and you do it more and you do it
more and your pleasure center shrinks
and we can keep doing this we can keep
designing products that tap into users
emotional subconscious thoughts in order
to push products but it’s really a
dangerous game to play because what’s
happening there is that you’re removing
a certain amount of agency and
influencing users ever so subtly in the
decisions that they make but I want you
to know it’s not just company’s fault
it’s our fault it’s consumers fault and
why is that well we live in the freemium
economy which means that we’ve signed
contracts terms of terms and conditions
so that you don’t have to pay for
products in exchange for not paying what
you have agreed to is you’ve agreed to
listening and information sharing which
means that when you’re on your platforms
and your apps more often than not they
have access to your microphone and your
camera at almost all times they’re
listening without you knowing my
roommate recently told me a story about
her talking about running shoes all day
and then when she went on her Facebook
page she saw all of these ads about
running shoes and she said it was really
creepy but she didn’t want to delete
facebook but she did want to turn the
listening off I’ve experienced that
before too so the question is how do we
redirect where do we go well there are a
lot of ways that we can use our
technology and move our science in
different ways we just have to free
ourselves from the anchor we’ve created
let me give you some examples think
about people who work in finance
insurance and municipal management
there’s a lot of people who look at
dashboards all day called controllers
they’re coming through that information
in order to make the systems run well we
can use our science in order to simplify
those screens and make it so she can
accomplish the controller because she’s
a girl
she can accomplish tasks with the fewest
amount of clicks and in the least amount
of time that helps us make money by
making us more efficient right there are
so many places we can go and we’ve
anchored to this super boring screen
based view of the world and I really
hope we remove ourselves from it imagine
if instead of selling you ads your phone
told you to turn it off and drink some
water and go to yoga or if we used our
technologies to build
completely non screen tech there’s a lot
of it coming out now we just have to
invest in it for example there is a
fabric that uses your body heat to power
your own devices imagine if we tested
that on users to perfection and we went
totally off-grid the path we set now and
the choices we make on how we integrate
with technology because we have made a
choice we have said yes to cyborg ism we
have said yes to integrating with
technology but the choices that we make
they define what futures we set they
define what jobs we have in the future
they define what legacies we leave
behind
and they define what futures we leave
for our children and my hope is that if
we embrace being cyborgs let’s embrace
being better cyborgs let’s embrace being
cyborgs that are committed to loving
each other and supporting each other
being supportive removing obstacles so
that we can spend more meaningful time
in our physical environments so what I’d
like to you to do
take out your phone again you’re not
going to like me
now take out your phone and hold down
that power button and turn it off I’ll
wait and put it back in your pocket and
I challenge you to keep that off until
you go to bed tonight if you have to
turn it on to put on your alarm clock I
understand but other than that keep it
off and notice how good it feels from
now when you go to the reception when
you’re driving home in your car how good
it feels to just be instigating some
really meaningful connections with
someone that’s important to you but also
notice your addiction you’re gonna want
to reach in and turn it back on and
check in on that digital bubble and
that’s okay but that is a sign of our
collective societal addiction to the
products we’ve made so it’s really
important to leave with a few ideas
first I want us to be expected to act
ethically in the design world which
means I want all of the citizens of our
country to demand good design so that US
designers can supply good design because
we really want to supply good design the
other thing is that it’s super important
for us to remember that the bravest
thing we can do is to try and fail and
try and fail and try and fail and try
again
and as we fail be looking at how our
failures affect the people that we
wanted to serve and learning from that
that’s truly how we make things better
for people over time I want you to
embrace this awesome toolkit that we
have of design research and neuroscience
this very interesting science of
uncovering human needs to guide us to
the most impactful
and meaningful projects so we can
improve our world together for your mind
[Applause]
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