The most compelling design challenges often emerge at the intersections between different contexts and constraints. Over the past few years, I've deliberately explored this spectrum, moving between commercial products at loveholidays, building AI solutions for non-profits like the Race Equality Foundation, and creating experimental digital ecosystems like Raw.Space. Each context has pushed my thinking in different directions, revealing new possibilities for how design can shape human experience and interaction.

This intentional navigation across diverse contexts has deepened my understanding of design's potential beyond conventional commercial applications. When you step outside familiar constraints, you discover principles and approaches that can transform how we think about digital experiences, community building, and the relationship between technology and human flourishing.

Learning from constraints and freedoms

Commercial environments provide valuable constraints that sharpen design thinking. At loveholidays, scaling design practices across international markets while maintaining brand coherence required systematic approaches to design systems, user research, and cross-cultural adaptation. The pressure to deliver measurable business outcomes forced clarity about which design decisions actually matter for user behaviour and commercial success.

Working with the Race Equality Foundation on their AI assistant presented different challenges. Non-profits operate with limited resources while handling sensitive community data and complex organisational knowledge. The design process required deep empathy for users' daily realities, careful attention to security and trust, and solutions that could create genuine efficiency gains rather than adding complexity.

Raw.Space emerged from removing most traditional constraints entirely. What happens when you design a digital space optimised for contemplative engagement rather than engagement metrics? How do you create community infrastructure that evolves through collective stewardship rather than platform control? These questions pushed me to experiment with fundamentally different design principles and interaction patterns.

Discovering transferable principles

Each context revealed design principles that prove valuable across different applications. The territorial organisation developed for Raw.Space, where different types of content and interaction have appropriate spaces without competing destructively, has applications in commercial product design. The navigation principles that support contemplative engagement can inform how we design for complex decision-making in business contexts.

The AI assistant work for non-profits revealed how thoughtful conversation design and context-aware information retrieval can create genuinely helpful rather than intrusive technology experiences. These insights apply directly to commercial AI implementations, where the goal should be augmenting human capability rather than replacing human judgement.

The international expansion work at loveholidays demonstrated how design systems can maintain coherence while adapting to local contexts and cultural differences. This experience proved invaluable when designing Raw.Space's collective infrastructure, where diverse perspectives need to coexist productively.

Rethinking engagement and attention

Perhaps the most significant insight from working across these contexts is how differently we can approach user engagement and attention. Commercial platforms typically optimise for metrics that serve business models: time spent, actions taken, revenue generated. These metrics shape design decisions in ways that may not align with user wellbeing or genuine value creation.

Experimental contexts allow exploration of alternative approaches. Raw.Space prioritises what might be called "meaningful engagement" over addictive engagement patterns. This means designing for depth rather than frequency, supporting users' agency rather than capturing their attention, and creating conditions for emergence rather than predetermined outcomes.

These alternative approaches aren't anti-commercial. They point towards more sustainable and ethical ways of creating value through design. Users increasingly recognise and reject manipulative design patterns. Companies that prioritise genuine user value over extractive engagement create stronger long-term relationships and more resilient business models.

Designing for collective intelligence

Working with non-profits and experimental platforms highlighted the importance of designing for collective intelligence rather than individual consumption. Both contexts required thinking about how groups of people can collaborate effectively, share knowledge, and build understanding together.

This shifts design focus from optimising individual user journeys towards creating conditions where collective capabilities can emerge. It means designing for dialogue rather than broadcasting, for collective sense-making rather than information delivery, and for community stewardship rather than platform dependency.

These insights prove increasingly relevant in commercial contexts. The most successful products create communities and enable collaboration. Designing for collective intelligence becomes a competitive advantage when it helps users accomplish things together that they couldn't achieve individually.

Technology as infrastructure for human capability

Across all these contexts, the most successful design approaches treat technology as infrastructure for human capability rather than replacement for human intelligence. The AI assistant for REF demonstrates this principle: rather than trying to provide answers, it helps staff access and synthesise their own organisational knowledge more effectively.

Raw.Space embodies this philosophy through its emphasis on contemplative engagement and collective stewardship. The platform provides infrastructure for the kinds of deep thinking and meaningful dialogue that humans excel at, rather than trying to automate these processes.

Commercial applications of this principle create more valuable and sustainable products. When technology genuinely augments human capability, users develop deeper expertise and more sophisticated needs, creating opportunities for continued innovation and value creation.

Cultural and contextual sensitivity

Working across different contexts emphasised the importance of cultural sensitivity and contextual awareness in design. International expansion at loveholidays required deep understanding of local market conditions, cultural preferences, and regulatory environments. Each market needed thoughtful adaptation rather than simple translation.

The non-profit context required sensitivity to community dynamics, power relationships, and the lived experiences of marginalised groups. Design decisions needed to acknowledge these realities rather than imposing external assumptions about how people should interact with technology.

Raw.Space explores how digital spaces can honour different ways of knowing and being, creating inclusive environments for diverse perspectives and approaches. This cultural sensitivity becomes increasingly important as technology reaches global audiences with vastly different contexts and needs.

Business implications and opportunities

This cross-contextual exploration reveals significant business opportunities for companies willing to experiment with alternative approaches. Users increasingly value authenticity, community, and meaningful engagement over purely transactional relationships.

The attention economy is showing signs of strain as users become more conscious of manipulative design patterns and seek alternatives that respect their agency and wellbeing. Companies that pioneer more ethical and sustainable approaches to user engagement can differentiate themselves significantly.

The collective intelligence capabilities developed through experimental work have direct applications in enterprise contexts, where organisations need better ways to share knowledge, collaborate across boundaries, and adapt to rapid change.

Methodological innovations

Working across these diverse contexts required developing new methodological approaches that combine rigorous user research with experimental design thinking. This includes methods for studying contemplative engagement, designing for emergence rather than predetermined outcomes, and creating infrastructure that evolves through collective stewardship.

These methodological innovations have applications across commercial design practice. They provide frameworks for approaching complex design challenges where traditional user-centred design methods may be insufficient, particularly when designing for collective capabilities or emergent behaviours.

The experimental work also revealed the importance of designing research methods that match the values and principles embedded in the design itself. Studying contemplative engagement requires research approaches that respect the same principles of depth, emergence, and collective intelligence.

Future directions and implications

This exploration across commercial, non-profit, and experimental contexts has revealed new possibilities for how design can contribute to individual and collective flourishing. The insights gained from each context inform and enrich the others, creating a more sophisticated understanding of design's potential impact.

The business case for these alternative approaches continues to strengthen as users become more discerning about technology's role in their lives and organisations recognise the limitations of extractive engagement models. Companies that pioneer more thoughtful and sustainable approaches to design will likely gain significant competitive advantages.

The experimental work demonstrates that alternative approaches to digital design are both possible and valuable. As these experiments mature, they provide practical frameworks and proven principles that can be adapted to commercial contexts while maintaining their essential humanity and respect for user agency.

Working across this spectrum has ultimately reinforced my conviction that design's highest purpose is supporting human flourishing in all its forms. Whether optimising conversion rates, helping non-profits serve their communities more effectively, or creating spaces for contemplative dialogue, the core challenge remains the same: how do we use design to create conditions where people can thrive individually and collectively?

The future of design lies in integrating insights from across these contexts, creating approaches that are both commercially viable and genuinely beneficial for human wellbeing. This integration requires designers who can navigate different contexts with equal sophistication, understanding how principles and practices translate across boundaries while respecting each context's unique requirements and opportunities.

Raw.Space is an ongoing design experiment exploring alternative digital interaction patterns.