Humanity-Centered Design vs Human-Centered Design

Why is it called "Humanity-Centered Design" and how does it differ from "Human-Centered Design"?
Even though "human" and "humanity" may seem to mean the same thing, their definitions in this context are different.

Take a journey back with me to the 1980s. The concept of "Human-Centered Design" was born, with a prime focus on individual people, essentially catering to the specific users the design was created for.

As one or two of you know - I studied architecture and town and urban planning - and I had the luck to had professors who stressed again the human factor of everything.
And one of my role models was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, he was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner - and he was unique and innovative on so many levels - but once I learned especially about the effects of his urban planning - my appreciation  faded away - because of the effects of architectural stimuli on human psychology and physiology.

While architecture and buildings fulfill the most basic human needs like shelter and security, architecture and urban environments impacts the emotional state of any person who interacts with it. Whether it’s intended or not, a building can provoke a range of emotions such as belonging, awe, fear, or hope.
Architecture, urban planning and design create physiological responses in people that can promote long-term health and well-being — and in some cases, illness or mental distress.
The impacts of the built environment on human psychology and physiology is extensive and robust in certain areas and weaker in others. Architectural design features involving light, color, complexity, viewing nature, olfaction, audition, and some forms of geometry, have been demonstrated to influence human behavior, health, happiness, and physiological function in myriad ways. 

Or imagine something much smaller - designing a pair of glasses for someone, ensuring the size, shape, and lens power meet that individual's needs. This approach still echoes in today's design world. But since then, the world has grown more conscious of societal biases and the impact humans have on mother nature.

With "Humanity-Centered Design", the focus is on the rights of everyone and addresses the overall ecosystem (including all creatures and the environment). Here's the definition Don Norman provided to the Interaction-Design Foundation for a series he worked with them on:

“Humanity-centered design represents the ultimate challenge for designers to help people improve their lives. Where “human-centered” puts a face to a user, “humanity-centered” expands this view far beyond: to the societal level of world populations who face hordes of highly complex and interrelated issues that are most often tangled up in large, sophisticated, “human-caused” systems.”  (Interaction Design Foundation, 2022)

When designing with humanity in mind, we must think about more than just people. We should take into account the globe as a whole, including all life forms, land, water and air quality, different species and climate shifts, as every aspect is interconnected.

There are four main principles of Human-Centered Design:

1. Solve the primary issues, not just the observable problem.
2. Concentrate on people.
3. Use a systemic perspective, understanding issues arise from interlinked parts.
4. Regularly test to ensure designs meet the target audience's needs.

These principles do not address sustainability, fairness, and bias and often focus on solving immediate issues rather than their long-term consequences.

Humanity-Centered Design builds upon these principles and extends them to include all life forms and the ecosystem, and considers the long-term effects, adding a fifth principle and modifying the second and third principles to consider a broader array of issues.

The five principles of Humanity-Centered Design are:

1. Focus on the entire ecosystem of people, all living things, and the physical environment - Addressing the underlying issues, not just the immediate problem.
2. Solve the root issues, not just the problem as presented (which is often the symptom, not the cause) - Concentrating on all life forms and the ecosystem.
3. Take a long-term, systems point of view. We must realize that the impact of our actions on society and the ecosystem can take years to appear or manifest even decades later - Using a longer-term systemic perspective.
4. Continually test and refine the proposed designs to ensure they truly meet the concerns of the people and ecosystem for whom they are intended - Keeping, testing and refining designs to ensure they meet the needs and concerns of the target community.
5. Design with the community, not for them - Designing 'with' the community, supporting designs 'by' the community, with professional designers acting as resources and facilitators.

I would shorten it to the thought - Human-Centered-Design puts real people at the center of business, development processes and UXdesign activities, enabling to create products and services that resonate and are tailored to audience's needs. And Humanity-Centered-Design is approach to designing the path to complex global problems.

The whole Article about Humanity-Centered Design 

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/humanity-centered-design

And by the way - 

During the pandemic, many people throughout the world developed a new appreciation for and relationship to spaces (digital and in real life) and even for public space. I mentioned at the beginning that I studied and worked as architect and urban planner - exploring and experiencing virtual or public space - and enjoying them, feeling good not alone, and feeling save is super important - it relates to politics and culture. 

I will close my article with an external link - City Life Is Too Lonely. Urban Planning Can Help. 

And as I mentioned Loneliness - In this Context ... The WHO declares loneliness a ‘global public health concern’ - On my mental health blog I wrote about loneliness as well.