Creating for others requires empathy for other people’s experiences. This is the essence of user-centered design. But we have a problem: our basic conception of “the User” is outdated and incomplete for today’s socially and technologically interconnected world.

This FieldTrip will introduce an emerging new approach to user-centered design called “user ecosystem thinking,” which questions some of the most fundamental conventions about users, what they experience, and how to design for them. We will show how user ecosystem thinking can boost our imagination and transform the ways we create for and with others — whether they are near or distant, in the present or in the future.

The FieldTrip will include an overview of user ecosystem thinking, brainstorming activities, and practical tools for putting this perspective to work in your own creative practice.

About your hosts

Your hosts, Mike Youngblood, Ben Chesluk, and Nadeem Haidary, are the authors and illustrator of Rethinking Users: The Design Guide to User Ecosystem Thinking (www.rethinkingusers.com). Mike is a design anthropologist (and layman carpenter) focused on social and environmental change, Ben is a design anthropologist (and hip hop enthusiast) focused on improving healthcare, and Nadeem is a product designer working on cutting edge hardware technology (and sort of obsessed with flags).