Humanist Design in the Age of the Machine
by Jameson Proctor & Zander Abranowicz, Athletics
I received my first computer in the early 1980s—a kit-built Apple II+ handed down from my grandfather. I spent more time with that machine than perhaps I should have. Since then, as a result of factors both within and beyond my control, technology has taken a central place in my life—both personally and professionally.
Over the course of the past four decades, I've witnessed the accelerating dialectic of becoming as technology in its myriad forms oscillates wildly between the poles of being and nothingness—a phenomenon we might summarize in the phrase “digital revolution.”
As we continue to climb the exponential knee of Moore’s law, science fiction becomes not just science fact, but commodity, as technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning become tools of the trade accessible to all practitioners. As a result, it is vital that we take a renaissance approach to our practice—one best described by Paola Antonelli, who refers to design as “a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something that the world didn't know it was missing.”
Elegy for the first digital revolution
The digital revolution, like all revolutions, resulted from conscious human activity aimed at achieving definite outcomes: the liberation of information, the connection of global communities, the unlocking of latent potential. Once digital technology was able to escape the primordial soup of the military, manufacturing, and academia, it came to pervade every aspect of our lives—the workplace, the home, public spaces—transforming life on earth and creating extraordinary wealth. Along the way, however, it somehow lost the luster of its original promise.
That’s the funny thing about revolutions: they rarely stop at their intended outcomes. As revolutions accelerate, their planned trajectories become irrelevant. From the gradual closing of the open web, to the use of automation in mass surveillance, to the destabilization of democracy at the hands of trolls and digital miscreants, to the erosion of personal and data privacy, to social media’s implication in the rise of social anxiety and mass loneliness, we’ve paid an immense price for the accumulation of immense wealth, power, and prestige.
Manifesto for the second digital revolution
It’s time to refocus our collective attention on the humanist potential of technology; and reassert conscious control over a resource that must be of the people, for the people, and by the people. As digital agencies march into the second digital revolution, what beliefs might guide our decisions? How might we slow—or even reverse—the erosion of technology’s potential for good?
To affect change, you have to play the game.
For us at Athletics, the Brooklyn-based design studio where I serve as Director of Digital Strategy, that means working mainly in a commercial context: offering our digital services to clients willing to pay us in return. Design is the union of art and commerce, and art and commerce have always been easy bedfellows. Behind every Renaissance artist, architect, or sculptor were the open coffers of the Medici or the Vatican. Where better to understand the market pressures bearing down on our practice than at their source?
Good design is good for people.
Good design emerges from a deep understanding of a client’s organizational, financial, experiential, and/or ethical objectives, a thorough analysis of the market or field in which a client exists, and, most importantly, a sincere empathy for their audience. Machine learning, data lakes, artificial intelligence, and all the other mod cons the second digital revolution puts readily at our disposal should play a prominent role in our strategies, but never at the expense of our human audience, and the quality and authenticity of their experience. Otherwise, we run the very real risk of putting the machine before the human.
Don’t take data at face value
Data in and of itself is neutral. Data, when taken at face value, can quickly become bad—or at least aid in the creation of bad experiences—when misinterpreted or given precedence over emotional insight or intuition. As a result, we believe in questioning what we learn from data, engaging the audience, ideally face to face, to ensure the insights we glean are at the service of human need and the creation of beauty.
Slow. Things. Down.
The circulation of information and ease of connection that have characterized the first digital revolution seem to have accelerated the passage of time, and the speed of life. We’re not Luddites or Shakers, but we think something is lost when we’re distractedly racing from one feed to another, never really absorbing the information we’re fed, or appreciating the moments that comprise our lives. What does this mean in practice? It means digital doesn’t have to mean ephemeral. We believe in creating experiences that are so compelling, clean, and coherent that visitors take a deep breath, soften their gaze, and allow themselves to really engage with the content, resources, or products being presented. It means putting our audiences, and not machines, in the driver’s seat, and allowing them to move through an experience at their own pace, along their own route, on their own terms. This is good for audiences, building loyalty, affinity, and trust. It is therefore, by extension, good for clients.
Long live the revolution
Technology needs a new renaissance attitude. One focused on beauty, truth, morality, and the attentiveness to human needs both practical and transcendental. Digital agencies have agency. They have power. At the dawn of a new decade, let’s reclaim technology as a force for good. Let’s keep the revolution alive.
Jameson Proctor, Athletics
Jameson is Digital Strategy Director and a partner at Athletics. Joining Athletics as a partner in 2014, Jameson has injected technical rigor throughout the studio’s project lifecycle, and led many digital-first projects including ServiceNow Workflow Quarterly, J.P. Morgan In—Residence, Hubble, New York Review of Books, and the Museum of the City of New York. Jameson is also founder of Campaign Games, a historical strategy games company founded in 2019.
Zander Abranowicz, Athletics