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Beyond Human-Centeredness: Reimagining Object Agency in Posthuman Design Practice

Author(s)

Shuyuan Zheng*

Affiliation(s)

Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, London, United Kingdom *Corresponding Author

Abstract

Human-centered design has long operated as the dominant paradigm within design discourse, prioritizing usability, efficiency, and human cognitive needs. However, accelerated technological development, ecological instability, and the emergence of posthuman perspectives have prompted an increasingly urgent critique of anthropocentric assumptions. This paper presents a practice-based investigation into how agency and expressive capacity may be granted to everyday objects through ambiguous material behaviour, sensor-based interaction, and generative symbolic systems. Drawing from approaches found in speculative design, object-oriented ontology, feminist technoscience, and broader posthuman thinking, this research develops a series of prototypes that destabilize predictable human–object relations. In this framework, the objects do not function as tools but as expressive entities whose behaviours resist linear interpretation, prompting users to reconfigure their assumptions about material agency. User studies show that ambiguity, unpredictability, and distributed forms of agency can encourage new relational modes of interaction and foster ethical reconsideration of non-human actors. The paper concludes by proposing a conceptual model for posthuman design ethics, arguing that design—when decentered from human needs—can serve as a catalyst for multi-subjective, entangled modes of coexistence within complex technological ecologies.

Keywords

Posthuman Design; Material Agency; Speculative Design; Ambiguous Interaction; More-than-Human Ecologies

References

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