Collaborative and Lasting Change

Image from Stefanie Di Russo.

Design, once a specific term to describe creating an object has now become a common term used outside of creative disciplines. Businesses and business schools all over the country are embracing design “thinking” as a way to explore deep seated issues and unmet needs. Even NGOs, governments, and UNICEF are beginning to use the phrase and the methodology.

What does Design Thinking mean? It is a process that begins by framing an issue or problem, talking with people who are affected by the issue, coming up with a number of quick prototype solutions, and refining the prototypes. Or put more succinctly, “inspiration, ideation, and implementation...aimed at getting beyond assumptions that block effective solutions.”(1)

Diagram from Stefani Di Russo

As a methodology for solving problems design thinking has its roots in many disciplines - engineering, urban planning, graphic design and industrial design. How did all these seemingly different disciplines combine to create to what is seen as a “new way of thinking”? Design researcher Stefanie Di Russo created a diagram to make sense of design’s recent history. (2)

Looking at the history of design, what stands out most to me is who is part of the design process and how they are involved. As Di Russo explains, the 1960’s “participatory design” was a tool of science and engineers. They drove the design process with little input from end-users. User-testing was focused on the usability of the product and often disregarded user need and interests. (2)

In the 1980’s “user-centered design” emerged as designers began looking to user needs and interests. They designed with the user in mind. Service design extended the design approach beyond product development to include human interactions. This approach includes looking at how users use products and services and using those insights to create better products or services. (2)

In the late 1990’s Human-Centered Design began to look at products and services as a means to an end. Ideally, products and services would disappear into the background as people’s needs and interest were met. Drawing on curriculum at the Stanford’s d. school, IDEO democratized the design process by breaking Human-Centered Design down into 3 steps - hear, create, and deliver - and created a free toolkit for anyone to use.

For me, the power of design thinking lies in its ability to look at systemic problems with curiosity and invite experts, the people who live with the issue on a regular basis, to participate in crafting the solution.

A good example of what design thinking can offer comes from a story told by Catapult Design at a workshop I attended last summer. An NGO was working in a slum to increase the health of residents through sewage treatment. “Experts” in waste management went in to the neighborhoods to observe how people were informally handling sewage waste. They observed that people went to open areas and used them as open-air communal toilets. Open ditches ran through the neighborhood draining these areas. With these observations in hand, the NGO worked with engineers to create in-house sewage treatment units. They were odorless, efficiently took care of waste and were supplied to household by the NGO. The problem was that no one used them.

Had the “experts” in waste management talked with the residents about their lives and the system that they lived in, they would have discovered that the residents had many competing needs. One of the greatest needs was finding alone time away from families and neighbors in the the crowded slums. Using a toilet outside of the home was one of the few moments each day they had to themselves and it wasn’t something that they were willing to give up.

It is this nuanced understanding of shared human needs and desires that I hope design thinking can address in a way that creates collaborative and lasting change.

The Intersection of Design and Social Impact

Growing up my parents introduced me to the power of design, although they called it “being resourceful.” A household appliance or piece of clothing wasn't functioning the way they wanted, so they’d re-designed it to suit their needs. My mom taught me to sew and I’d find little things that needed a custom bag to protect it, or sew extra pockets into my clothes. In the wood shop my dad taught me to use power tools to make boxes and stools. Later, as a sailor, I carved pieces of wood to protect my rigging knife, and made canvas buckets to haul tools up the mast. My parents taught me to literally make solutions to the problems that I faced. Yes, this is "being resourceful." And I later realized that it is also called design.

As a young adult, however, I saw “design” as something frivolous: shiny products that oozed cool and were made by skilled industrial designers and glamorized by creative marketers. These beautifully designed objects -- smartphones, cars, kitchen knives, bags, artisanal coffee -- surround Americans everyday. They make our world beautiful and seemingly unblemished.

Walkway at SFO airport

In 2010 I saw Emily Pilloton's TED talk about using design to change people’s lives. Pilloton worked in rural North Carolina with high school students. She used design principles to engage her students in finding solutions to problems that ailed their communities. They weren’t just building a farmer's market, they were creating meaningful employment for their neighbors and families.

Pilloton’s talk showed me a new side of design. Design is a tool, and like all tools it can be used for meaningful things or frivolous things. Pilloton introduced me to a movement that takes industrial design, anthropological study of human needs, and marketing finesse to effect deep change and for people all over the world.

Exciting changes are happening in social entrepreneurship, international aid, and design. This blog will explore where and how these topics intersect to create a better world for us all.