To truly design for the future, we must look Beyond Human-Centered Design. We must acknowledge that optimizing the world for the convenience of one species—at the direct expense of the 8.7 million others—is not a triumph of design; it is a failure of imagination.
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a problem.
For decades, “Human-Centered Design” has been our north star. We treated it as the ultimate moral framework. We see designers to obsess over the user. To smooth every edge. To remove every friction. To make everything convenient, fast, and delightful for the human.
And we succeeded. We made the plastic water bottle perfectly ergonomic for the human hand. We made single-use delivery packaging incredibly convenient for the human schedule. We optimized the world for the comfort of one species, often at the direct expense of the other 8.7 million species sharing this planet.
We optimized the chair for the sitter, but we ignored the forest.
As we face the climate crisis, we must admit a hard truth: HCD is an ego-centric framework. It places Homo sapiens at the top of a pyramid that doesn’t exist. If we want to survive the next century, we must tear down that pyramid. We must move toward More-Than-Human Design.
The Tyranny of Convenience
The core flaw of Human-Centered Design is that it treats the “User” as the only stakeholder that matters.
When we design a product, we map the “User Journey.” We ask: Does this solve a pain point for the customer? But in an interconnected ecosystem, solving a pain point for a human often creates a death sentence for a non-human.
Consider the disposable coffee cup. From a Human-Centered Design perspective, it is a triumph: lightweight, heat-retentive, cheap, and disposable. It scores 10/10 for user experience. From a Regenerative Design perspective, it is a disaster: a resource-intensive extraction that becomes toxic waste in twenty minutes.
We have designed a world of “Externalities”—where the cost of our convenience is outsourced to the oceans, the soil, and future generations. The future of design cannot be about making things easier for humans. It must be about making things possible for life.
Defining the “More-Than-Human” Stakeholder
So, what does it mean to design for the “More-Than-Human“?
It means expanding our stakeholder maps. When I run workshops now, I force executives to leave an empty chair at the table. That chair represents “The River.” Or “The Honeybee.” Or “The Mycelium Network.”
This is not poetic metaphor; it is a practical design constraint.
Interspecies Empathy requires us to ask: What is the user experience of this building for the local bird population? What is the user experience of this agricultural runoff for the algae in the bay?
This shifts the metric of success. “Good Design” is no longer defined by sales or engagement. It is defined by Symbiosis. Does this product feed the system that created it?
From Biomimicry to Bio-Integration
For years, we have practiced Biomimicry—looking at nature and copying its homework. We looked at burrs and invented Velcro. We looked at shark skin and invented swimsuits. This was a good start, but it is still extraction. We are still just stealing nature’s IP.
The next phase is Bio-Design and Bio-Integration. This is not about copying nature; it is about collaborating with it.
We are seeing this in the “grown environment.” Instead of baking bricks in a kiln (releasing CO2), architects are now growing structures using mycelium (mushroom roots) that eat agricultural waste and grow into strong, fire-resistant forms. We are seeing designers use algae-embedded facades that consume smog and produce oxygen.
We are moving from “Industrial Manufacturing” (heat, beat, and treat) to “Biological Fabrication” (grow, adapt, and decompose).
The Designer as Translator
The biggest challenge of More-Than-Human Design is communication. A river cannot fill out a survey. A forest cannot leave a 1-star review on Yelp.
This is where the designer becomes a translator.
We must use technology—sensors, AI, and data visualization—to give a voice to the voiceless. Imagine a dashboard for a city that doesn’t just show traffic flow, but shows the stress levels of the local oak trees. Imagine a supply chain software that blocks a purchase if the soil health of the cotton farm drops below a certain threshold.
This is Interspecies Empathy operationalized. It is the act of making the invisible visible.
Conclusion: An Eco-Centric Future
To my fellow designers and students: You have a choice.
You can continue to be “Human-Centered.” You can continue to polish the deck chairs on the Titanic, making the ride slightly more comfortable for the passengers while the ship sinks.
Or, you can embrace the More-Than-Human. You can acknowledge that we are not the masters of this planet, but merely its tenants. You can design systems that are Regenerative, Circular, and Symbiotic.
The era of the “User” is over. We are all just “Participants” now. And it’s time we started designing like it.