Copyright Charleston Post and Courier
"I'm not good with technology." This common refrain reveals a critical failure — not of users, but of designers who've abandoned human- and planet-centered thinking. The culprit? Our systematic devaluation of arts education precisely when we need it most. When someone struggles with technology, blame the designer, not the user. Don Norman of the Neilson Norman Group is hailed as the father of user experience and for good reason. He argues that effective design requires understanding people fundamentally different from ourselves. This understanding emerges through arts, literature and careful observation — skills that traditional STEM education often overlooks. In my course Process & Systems for Emergent Design: Co-Creating with AI, students tackle real-world problems through experimentation and hands-on creation. They design user interfaces for autonomous vehicles and envision industrial products that don't yet exist. Half aren't even art majors, proving Norman's assertion that design thinking should be foundational across disciplines. The power of experiential learning became evident when my students redesigned communications for the S.C. House Legislative Oversight Committee. Legislators struggled with 100-page bills summarized in poorly designed one-sheets. Through iterative experimentation — sketching, prototyping, testing — students created solutions that legislators could understand immediately. They presented their work on the House floor, with their contributions recorded in the official minutes. This hands-on approach doesn't diminish with digital tools. Contrary to popular belief, experimentation and critical thinking aren't lost on screens. My students use artificial intelligence to expand their creativity, generating video and 360-degree renderings that would be impossible with traditional media alone. However, these digital tools remain precisely that — tools. They cannot replace the fundamental cognitive processes of pen-and-paper sketching, critical analysis and human observation that drive meaningful innovation. The stakes extend far beyond aesthetics. Art triggers emotion, which shapes information processing and decision-making. When designers understand these human factors, they create products that people actually use. When they don't, warehouses fill with unsold widgets, and promising technologies fail in the marketplace. Consider the broader implications: Artificial intelligence and machine-learning systems increasingly shape our daily experiences. Yet if the humans designing these systems lack empathy, observational skills and creative problem-solving abilities — precisely what arts education develops — we'll create technologies that serve machines rather than people. Students in our design program work with AI not as passive consumers but as active collaborators, asking the right questions guided by their own creative vision. They sketch ideas, experiment with forms and iterate through failure toward breakthrough. This process requires the cognitive flexibility that arts education uniquely provides. Traditional STEM approaches often prioritize efficiency and standardization. Arts education champions experimentation, embraces ambiguity and develops comfort with iterative failure — exactly what's needed to navigate technological uncertainty. Students learn to observe human behavior, question assumptions and synthesize insights across disciplines. The University of South Carolina's School of Visual Art and Design celebrates its centennial this year, representing 100 years of proof that arts and humanities remain essential to industrial progress. Our graduates don't just make things look appealing — they ensure things work intuitively for real people in real contexts. We must resist the false choice between technical skills and creative thinking. The designers and engineers solving tomorrow's challenges need both computational fluency and human insight. They need to be comfortable with both pixels and pencils, algorithms and empathy. This perspective is shared by industry leaders such as John Maeda, vice president of Design and Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft, who says, "Speaking human really well will matter more than speaking machine in this next chapter." As we advance into an increasingly automated world, the skills that distinguish humans from machines become more valuable, not less. Arts education develops these irreplaceable capacities: creative problem-solving, empathetic observation and the ability to envision possibilities that don't yet exist. To abandon arts education now would be to surrender our competitive advantage precisely when human creativity matters most. The future belongs to those who can make technology serve humanity — not the other way around. Meena Khalili is an associate professor of design and interaction in the University of South Carolina's School of Visual Art and Design. Her designs have been featured in gallery exhibitions across Europe, Asia and North America, with artwork in permanent collections worldwide, including the Library of Congress.
