Through my time working with tech startups & scaleups, along with more established organisations, I've come to see good design as fundamental in creating flows, interactions, and systems that put people at the heart of the experience. 

Increasingly however, I now believe that human-centred design also needs to include consideration for wider systems and populations. I’m talking here of complex systems of biodiversity, and nature at large- thus moving beyond a singular focus on human needs. Ultimately, this wider focus can be to the benefit of society, so in a roundabout way it can still be considered human centric. 

I know this sounds lofty, so to ground it a bit, I also believe that we should be spending less time on our devices and more time outdoors away from screens. To reconcile this innate contradiction- I'm a huge advocate of enabling people to complete tasks (particularly the more mundane & transactional types) as easily and efficiently as possible. This may be something as simple as UX work I did to help streamline a healthcare appointment booking process. Or, in my pre-digital design life, you could catch me doing anything from designing a fitness training session that would be optimal for player development, to organising a stockroom so that employees could easily find the items of clothing they needed to. As such, saving people time and reducing unnecessary stress is a big motivating factor for me.  

Storytelling of course plays a key role in design too. The writing & performing of spoken word is one form of creativity I use to convey different experiences- with one piece capturing my mam’s very frustrating (but also very comical) experience of trying to pay her friend through online banking. 

Creating a visual identity is another powerful storytelling technique, and one that I'm employing to help build community for outdoor experiences ‘That hits the spot’ and ‘Off the beaten'. 

The art of storytelling can be greatly complemented with the application of timeless design principles and laws of UX, grounded in a basic understanding of underlying human psychology. It's an area I find particularly compelling, such that I created an interactive knowledge base that documents many of these themes. 

As not one, but a two-time college dropout in my younger days, I’ve placed a strong emphasis and investment in my education in recent years. Throughout my studies I’ve adopted a design lens when approaching projects- from research & documentation, to designing an interview questionnaire for my dissertation, to creating a concept app for exploring sustainability-related concepts, theories, and books. 

For crucial themes such as people accessing & understanding their health records through to the financing of ecological restoration projects- I see the discipline of design as being fundamental, and I want to be part of it playing a bigger role in these areas. 

Thanks

Karl Byrne
Bray, Co. Wicklow