Why creative tech fails without human-centred thinking
Real world truth:
Creative technology doesn’t fail because it’s broken. It fails because it doesn’t account for how people actually behave, especially under pressure.
The challenges:
Understanding the psychology behind platform adoption inside creative teams, and why the best tools are often ignored. At the heart of the problem - habit. Creatives are under pressure. When in doubt, they fall back on what’s familiar, even if it’s inefficient. New systems disrupt those habits, and unless they’re designed with real human behaviour in mind, they are ignored.
Meeting the challenges:
Based on behavioural science and first-hand experience a five-part framework for ensuring adoption, right from the start:
- Listen: Understand real working behaviours before building anything.
- Fix the Foundations: Align processes and priorities before layering tech.
- Build for Behaviour: Reduce friction, use familiar UX, and design for defaults.
- Embed Like a Campaign: Treat change like a brand activation, not an admin or compliance task.
- Iterate Forever: Adoption is ongoing, not a launch milestone.
Highlighting the real reasons systems fail: lack of emotional connection, too much effort, and no visible value.
Using insights from effort aversion, social proof, and cognitive overload, practical ways to build adoption that sticks, not adoption that’s forced on the unwilling.
Exploring the balance between empathy and leadership. While buy-in is essential, decision-making must not be stalled by an endless pursuit of consensus.
Change management must be inclusive, but must also be led with clarity and confidence.
Delivering a practical adoption checklist ready for immediate use, to:
- Assess a team’s readiness
- Shape the next rollout
- Course-correct a system that’s been ignored.
If it doesn’t fit the habit, it won’t get used. How to meet that challenge.