ARC.003 — Thesis: The Hidden Cost.

There is a silent asymmetry in design. The institutions that design the world know exactly how much time you spend in front of a screen, how many times you press a button, how long it takes you to abandon an app, and what increases the probability that you will return tomorrow. They measure clicks, sessions, retention, conversion, and engagement with extraordinary precision.

But that logic wasn't born with screens. A casino removes clocks and windows. A supermarket places bread and milk at the back. An airport forces you to walk through stores before reaching the boarding gate. Screens didn't invent that way of designing. They only perfected it.

For decades we have learned to measure how people behave. We have almost never asked ourselves how much effort it costs them to do so. Not because it is impossible, but because it has never mattered where decisions are made. What is not measured does not enter a meeting. What does not enter a meeting does not enter the design.

Consequences

And that has consequences. We celebrate interfaces that capture attention while exhausting capacity. We design services that reduce seconds, but add decisions. We have learned to retain. We have not yet learned to give back. For a long time, I thought designing consisted of improving what we designed. Over time I discovered that I had been looking at the wrong place for years.

We live within actions

People don't live inside objects. We live inside actions. An object is never the destination. It is the bridge. A chair doesn't exist to sit: it exists to recharge. A light doesn't exist to illuminate: it exists to reset. A speaker doesn't exist to play sound: it exists to start. Objects have names. People live through verbs. Then I understood that the question was never what we are designing. The question is what human action we are making possible and how much it costs someone to perform it. Design doesn't end when the interface ends. It begins when it passes through you.

The seismograph

Parkinson's didn't give me that question. It gave me the first instrument to see it. The seismograph. My body began to register the cost of actions that used to be invisible: opening a door, interpreting an interface, making an unnecessary decision, holding a conversation in a noisy restaurant. Afterwards I understood that this instrument does not belong to Parkinson's.

It also exists in those who are aging, in those who live with pain, in those who sleep little, in those who are going through grief, in those who care for another person, or simply in those who are having a bad day. We all have an energy budget. The difference is when we begin to notice it.

The energy label

Then I thought about washing machines. For years they consumed the same amount of electricity without anyone being able to compare them. The energy label didn't redesign any washing machines. It made a cost visible. And when a cost becomes visible, design changes. Perhaps we have needed a similar label for decades. Not to measure the energy a design consumes, but the energy it asks of the person.

Human Notes

That question gave rise to Human Notes. Not to design better, but to make the invisible cost of design visible. I don’t aspire for that question to be mine. I aspire for it to cease to belong to me and become part of any serious conversation about design. Because if the question changes, design changes. And if design changes, so does the life that unfolds around it.

Perhaps we never design objects. Perhaps we are always designing human capacity. Now it is your question, too.