Breakout Session

Cyborg-Centric Design

Session Type

Breakout Session

When

Thursday

19 Oct

12:15

Room

About the Session

A human-centric approach has been a dominant way of solving design problems for the past 50 years - and looking at the world as it is in 2023, we can be quite confident that it hasn’t saved the world. We believe that there are two good reasons for that:

The meaning of "being human" has drastically changed over the past decade, but designers didn't adapt to it.
Designers underestimated the non-human actors and their agency in the ecosystems

We believe that a human-centric approach has reached its limits because the user we are designing for today is not a pure human anymore - it’s a cyborg, with a human core, and connected technologies intertwined with them - and these technologies also have their own will and agency.

In our workshop, we will make an attempt to translate the philosophical approaches of technological mediation and flat ontology into a practical approach of a post-human understanding of design.

We will:

Explore the understanding of the post-human state of the technologically augmented user,
Define ways of considering the user as a complex biological-technological ecosystem we call a cyborg,
Explore new, valuable solutions with this approach and create previously near-impossible enhancements (for example advanced accessibility, dissolving the information bubble with non-biased agents, or even the future of hyperpersonalization in the e-commerce field).

Get in touch

on LinkedIn

atlasrise.io

About the Speaker

Ákos Csertán

Design Strategist & CEO at Atlas, Rise!

Ákos Csertán is a design strategist and CEO at Atlas, Rise! - an impact driven innovation community working with enterprises on designing socially and environmentally sustainable digital products.

With 16 years of experience in UX, service design, design strategy, he started out originally as a psychologist, moved into the field back then known as software ergonomics - practically, UX. He created his first startup in 2006, after an exit, he worked for multiple agencies as a UX-er, and later at an IT security company as a UX lead and Design Strategist.
‍
Along with his work as a designer, Ákos has been teaching UX, design theory and design strategy at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design since 2014 - where he also spent two years as a researcher in the field of smart spaces and smart offices. He also participates in multiple startup incubators in Hungary as a startup mentor; he is one of the organisers of UX Budapest, the biggest tech-related meetup community in Hungary (with over 3000 members currently and monthly meetups with 100-200 participants).

Ákos also holds an iF Award in Service Design, a Red Dot, and over 20 creative awards.

Get in touch

on LinkedIn

About the Speaker

Norbert Krizsán

Design Strategy Advisor at Mito Digital

Norbert is a product- and business-strategy-focused user experience designer with 10+ years of experience, and currently the Design Strategy Advisor at Mito Digital. His years in the fields of medical usability and agencies, as well as his interaction design background helped him tremendously in the past years to architect digital products for various clients. Lately, his focus is more on the ethical side of design and the field of design’s effect on the individual and on society itself.