A few months ago, a friend of mine, Todd Wilkens, posted some provocative thoughts on the Adaptive Path blog.

Essentially, Todd says:

1. Instead of a framework focused on tasks, goals, and states, designers should use a framework focused on behaviors, motivations, and contexts.
2. A new framework is needed because the framework based on tasks, goals, and states doesn’t explicitly account for behaviors, motivations and context. Because of this, it’s difficult to account for those concerns in our designs. That is, we fail to realize certain solutions because our framework for thinking about the problem actually prevents us from considering some solutions.

I agree with Todd. A better understanding of peoples’ behaviors related to, motivations with regard to the contexts of use concerning our designs will lead to better designs.

But why stop there? Why not move even further, toward an integral framework for design? The more considerations we can integrate into our framework for design, the better our resulting solutions should be, yes?

Why not consider an even higher calling? What if, for example, our designs could help people become better people?

Imagine the level of integration into someone’s life your design would need to have for someone to say, “That [service] has my back,” or “My [product] actually cares for me.”

Now, when I say caring, I’m not simply talking about displaying kindness and concern for others. I’m talking about something deeper than that. I’m talking about having a relationship that facilitates self-actualization.

Self-actualization is probably not a word you use every day, but the concept is simple. Self-actualization is the fulfillment of one’s talents and potentialities. Self-actualization is about becoming the best “you” that you can be.

What I’m talking about are designs that are deeply ethical, not only in terms of environmental sustainability and social responsibility, but also in terms of caring.

I think few will argue that this is a bad idea, but all we have so far is an interesting thought experiment. In my mind, there are several important questions that remain:

1. Can a system be designed such that it can actually have a relationship with a person?
2. Are the concerns that go into designing such a system really that different from the concerns that go into user-centered design as we practice it today?
3. In practice, how do we go about understanding these concerns?
4. What would an integral framework for design look like?

What are your thoughts? Are there other questions I should be answering?