Love Centered Design
Human Centered Design is the wrong tool for the most important problems a designer may approach. Deep within us all lives a feeling of wanting to love and to be lovable. The best thing we can do is to let someone know that they are loved and lovable. If this seems familiar, it’s because it was Mr. Rogers’s ultimate message to you.
“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like ‘struggle.’ To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”
-Fred Rogers
Love is a struggle. It’s difficult to say, “I love you,” after having an argument with someone we care about. We suffer when a loved one suffers from illness. We hurt to love ourselves when suffering changes us. And when love is overwhelming, we can struggle to express it without hurting ourselves.
Mr. Rogers affects people in one of two ways: (1) they love him and (2) he’s scary. People were afraid because people hadn’t ever seen this type of man before. The listeners who gave his message their attention felt the emotions and curiosities that Rogers spoke on. It’s difficult to be present for uncomfortable moments, but it’s important for your independence.
Years ago I made a room, my professor and classmates, uncomfortable when we shared our design ideas one week. In my sophomore year for Industrial Design, someone close to me was being treated for aggressive cancer. My mind was full from trying to solve their pain away. In class, it was my turn to share my Design Idea Notebook. I spoke about how cancer centers did a shotty job of showing support for patients. The environment was great because of hospital staff only. Surely, there is something better for patients to sit on than old Lay-Z-Boys. There could be a better view than a white, brick wall. There could be any better way to express that someone has independence and the capacity for sharable love. There has to be a more loving way for people to move through our most painful institutional systems.
I argue that Love Centered Design, an approach that doesn’t exist in the design industry, is present in designs today. Creations that add to our sense of worth, like universal designs, communication buttons for dogs, national parks, “Free Hug” shirts, and systems designed to plant millions of trees by nonprofit organizations.
Designers at Propulsion Design, famous for Alienware, spoke about their processes and showcased special work. One design was an invention called the CaringBand. The CaringBand is worn by a patient in a hospital. When a patient’s loved one presses a button anywhere in the world, the patient’s band glows which signifies that someone is thinking about them. The patient cannot send a message back because the recipient should not feel the obligation to thank someone for loving them. Love is not a transaction.
Love Centered Design may be a system, a product, a helper, and even a wabi-sabi expression that caters to desires of belonging to ourselves so we may spread that feeling outward. This is not a subset of Human Centered Design because humans are not the only beings with desires of loving and being lovable. It’s for everyone who is.
Love Centered Design focuses on independence and acceptance and has no means to an end. Love is not dependance, rather, it is proportional to our capacity for independence. What if we design for that? What if we design to improve those proportions?