The gap between function and feeling

There's a moment I've seen repeated across twenty years and multiple industries.

A team builds something sophisticated. The pieces work individually. The flows are optimised. The interface is polished. But when you experience it as a whole, something is off. It functions, but it doesn't land. It's efficient, but it doesn't feel right.

This is not a failure of craft.

Much of modern design has become commoditised, produced through reusable patterns rather than considered intent, through speed rather than understanding, through best practices that prioritise delivery over meaning.

The result is systems that look polished but feel empty. That claim authenticity while behaving generically. That describe themselves as human-centred while quietly optimising for control.

In these environments, "human" becomes a label rather than a discipline. Empathy is declared, but agency is constrained. Choice is offered, but only within tightly managed paths. Care is expressed in language, but undermined by behaviour.

This tension is especially visible in how identity is treated.

Identity gets reduced to access, verification, or segmentation, a way to manage people within systems rather than a means of recognising them as individuals with context, intent, and dignity.

The deeper issue is fragmentation.

When design is split across functions, tools, and deliverables, systems lose their human logic. Intent fractures. Behaviour contradicts language. Experience stops aligning with values.

What remains is a collection of parts that technically work, but no longer feel coherent or trustworthy.

This is the gap I work in.