Conclusion: Spirits in a Digital World

As a race, human beings were always caught between the double-edge of survival and prosperity. We were assaulted by the winds of Winter and attacked by natural predators and, as largely physically inferior beings, we had to fight with the one weapon we have: our minds. We designed better tools to survive and developed means to perpetrate our knowledge down the generations. The rise of the scientific method allowed us to focus on facts instead of assumptions, and brought our knowledge out of the shadow of belief. However, as human beings, it is inevitable that we are molded by our environment and transformed by circumstances. Our very existence is the result of genetic accident, ensuring that each one of us is uniquely featured with different heights, appearances, and physiological distinctions. Difference is not a choice, and its impact on billions of lives worldwide earns a serious recognition from those that are developing solutions for the lives of those who may depend on them for comfort and even survival.

We are still at the onset of a long journey. To achieve the ability to personalize solutions for the individual, as opposed to the masses, we require deeper tools of thought, and more detailed methods of data collection and application. The mysteries of the human mind will likely continue to elude us for a long time, but the most important part of universal design lies in ourselves and is perfectly within immediate reach: we need to care. Care for others like we would care for ourselves. Care for a creation in order to ensure its purpose in the world has value. Design is not about selling a commodity, or repackaging an idea or concept: it is about providing the means to interact with the world and make our life in it easier and more practical. All that is designed, digital or not, should fulfill a role in somebody’s life.

The world’s most complex design problems can be reduced to a simple dictum: finding the least harmful and most rewarding way to satisfy a human need. The path to this ultimate objective will involve using technology to unlock the potential of human interaction and learning. An old dictum says that we are always learning. The more we learn about the world, the more we learn about ourselves, and only through empathy and awareness we can overcome the challenges that too often we pose ourselves as a race—challenges like war and poverty, or age and death. The ultimate path to this objective includes unlocking the potential of our own cognitive processes by allowing us to learn constantly by simply interacting. An old dictum says that we are always learning; technology will help us enforce that at last.

Before we challenge mortality, however, we must master the realities that we are currently building in the digital realm, virtual and otherwise. In the 1960s Marshall McLuhan foresaw that the world would be reduced to a global village. We are embedded in a sea of digital systems, where every connection is linked by information and data. We are designing a progressively smarter reality, but the core of our experience is the human. As we design environments by applying smarter and deeper solutions, so we design ourselves. The applications of technology become wider and clearer, challenging cultural and social stasis. In a world progressively troubled by political turmoil and social unrest, technology can be the great unifier, and design the discipline to cross beyond the brink of tolerance.

The world of tomorrow is a promising one, no matter what the present holds. Let us celebrate the differences that bind us by recognizing the premise that we all are different—and yet profoundly similar. In an age where the specter of endless conflict looms over many complex parts of the world, and fundamentalism threatens the last vestiges of empathy, it is essential to realize that which is common between us. Regardless of religion or creed, our canvas of the world is subject to the same common principles of design, perception, and cognition. Different perspectives may have different strokes, but the paint brush is largely the same. These similarities are essential in making us human, empowered by ingenuity to make the lives of those impacted by our practice easier and more fruitful. Technology is by its very definition dehumanizing. Standardization and functional design are an integral part of modern industrial practice. In a global economy, this makes sense, saving costs and reducing time to market. But these metrics are secondary in the face of human variation and creativity, and that is what universal design promotes: a space for discussing the requirements of those groups that often reside at the periphery of the world economy. Regardless of whether groups are challenged by ergonomics, cross-cultural issues, linguistic issues—or simply unable to experience technology in a way that enriches both the larger economy of their countries and the citizens. This is the heart of design. This is the heart of being human.