We’ve all been there. You’re on your mobile device and a digital experience is so frustrating you want to throw your phone out the window and go back to a simpler time. Well, you’re not alone. In a TELUS International survey, nearly 60% of people said they’d rather be stuck in traffic than endure a bad digital experience. And now, even with the rise of AI and hyperpersonalised experiences, Telus’s follow-up study showed little has changed, with 54% of consumers saying the same thing in a recent survey.
A bad user experience can ruin your day, but for an enterprise business, the cost is far bigger. McKinsey’s 2023 Design Index found that design-led companies outperform their industry peers by 32% in revenue growth and 56% in total returns to shareholders. And yet, many organisations still lead with technology decisions agnostic of human insight.
It’s understandable. Technology moves fast, and the pressure to ship is oftentimes never-ending. But when businesses remove the human layer (the research, testing, and behavioral insights that make products lovable), what they gain in delivery velocity they risk losing in market relevance. Because executing the process effectively is meaningless if we fail to understand the underlying reasons for user needs.
Human-centered design is a business strategy
Human-centered design isn’t a trend. It’s a way of running a business that harmonises product outcomes with human needs. Studies have shown over and over that when companies invest in human capital they make their systems smarter, their customers happier, and their products more engaging.
Gartner recently reported that 80% of AI projects fail to meet adoption goals when user experience isn’t prioritised. That’s because no algorithm, no matter how advanced, can truly understand a poor interpretation of human behavior. The most loved technology today doesn’t just meet functional requirements, it makes people feel as if the product was made for them.
At Nearform, we see this every day. The organisations we work with that lead with human-centered design are able to create clarity out of complexity. They turn customer data into empathy, static workflows into meaningful experiences, and abstract strategies into outcomes their users can actually see and feel.
AI raises the stakes for empathy
AI has introduced a new design challenge: It’s no longer just about how an interface looks or behaves, it’s about how it decides. AI has the power to change the speed, scale, and shape of every decision made inside a digital product. But without a human-centered foundation, those decisions can quickly become disconnected from the very people they are meant to serve. Gartner calls this the “trust gap”: the widening space between what tech can do and what users actually trust it to do.
The irony here is that AI has the potential to make experiences more personal than ever, by using data to tailor interactions to individual preferences. Predictive models can surface the right content at the right moment; Natural language interfaces can simplify complexity. But they only work if the human on the other end feels in control. The companies that get it right won’t just build powerful models, they’ll build ones people trust.
Designing for connection, not control
Focusing on human-centered design requires asking the critical question: not can we build this, but should we build this? Good design anticipates user needs but still leaves room for choice. It utilizes AI to inform, but not dictate. The human must remain in the loop because behind every click or query is a very real person trying to solve something that matters to them, no matter how big or small the task.
According to Forrester, organizations that embed design early in the product lifecycle see 1.5x higher customer retention than those that treat it as a final step. The data is clear: empathy isn’t a choice. It’s a business imperative .
Leading through human-centered intelligence
At Nearform, our work sits at the intersection of product, design, and engineering. What makes that intersection powerful isn’t just technology. It's the way people connect through building it and using it. Human-centered intelligence means building systems that adapt to human behavior, not the other way around. That’s what allows AI to become an amplifier for creativity instead of a substitute for it. When teams blend data, design, and technical excellence around the shared goal of improving people’s lives, they don’t just deliver software outputs, they deliver impact and measurable business outcomes.
The next era of customer experience won’t belong to the companies that build the most features. Success will belong to the companies that design for scale, speed, and intelligence, all while keeping human-centricity at the centre of their processes.
Because when you build with empathy, you build something bigger than technology: you build human connection. And isn’t that the point of it all?
References
McKinsey Design Index (2023) – The Business Value of Design
Gartner (2024) – Why Most AI Projects Fail Without UX Governance
Forrester (2023) – Design’s Impact on Retention and Growth
MIT Sloan (2022) – Empathy as a Driver of Innovation
Nielsen Norman Group (2023) – The Cost of Poor UX: Billions in Lost Productivity
But wait - there's more.
Nearform publishes real-world learnings on data & AI, engineering, and digital strategy - with more merged in weekly.
Insights
Perspectives on AI in engineering, product development, and strategy, for enterprise executives.
Community
Deep dives and tutorials by engineers, for engineers.
You may also like
