Social Design

SOCIAL DESIGN

Kshitiz ANAND @kshitiz

Design for the other 90%

90% of a designer’s time is spent on the richest 10% - Paul Polak

CAN DESIGNERS CHANGE (IMPROVE)

THE WORLD?

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Design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension, society and himself) - Victor J Papanek, Design for the Real world

WHAT IS COMMON?

WHAT IS SOCIAL DESIGN

The foremost intent of social design is the satisfaction of human needs. The broad objective of social design is to improve ‘social quality’. ��It is about designing new functioning to elevate individual and community capability and propose solutions that genuinely empower and extend the capability of the user. - Alastair Fuad-Luke on Social Design, in book ‘Design Activism: Beautiful strangeness for a sustainable world’

DESIGN for

WANT DESIGN for

NEED

THE NEED?

UN Millennium DEVELOPMENT GOALS

h"p://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT ? 2.2 million people globally each year die due to _______?

WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT ? 2.2 million people globally each year die due to Diarrhoea h"p://www.who.int/water_sanita6on_health/diseases/diarrhoea/en/

h"p://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

EVIDENCES?

There are a lot of individuals, companies working on this now and they span across sectors

h"p://www.slideshare.net/kshi6z/design-‐u-‐turn-‐from-‐want-‐to-‐need

Human centered design IS AT THE HEART OF SOCIAL DESIGN

ARGUE Have ‘Design Thinking’ and ‘Social Innovation’ become permanently intertwined?

UNDERSTAND LIFEWORLDS - Edmund Husserl introduced the concept of the lifeworld in his ’Crisis of European Sciences’ (1936)

Lifeworld: (German Lebenswelt)

h"p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeworld

A state of affairs in which the world is experienced, the world is lived. A universe of what is self-evident or given. Cannot be understood in a purely static manner as all things appear as themselves and meaningful.

This collective inter-subjective pool of perceiving, is both universally present and, for humanity's purposes, capable of arriving at 'objective truth,' or at least as close to objectivity as possible.

Lifeworld: (German Lebenswelt)

Research perspectives

1.  Phenomenological 2.  Epistemological 3.  Sociological

Phenomenological (- Husserl & Schütz)

- see the lifeworld to be the study of the structures of subjective experience and consciousness -  to understand that we each individualistic,

“I-the-man” and all of us together, belong to the world as living with one another in the world

- the world is our world, valid for our consciousness as existing precisely through this 'living together.’

Phenomenological (- Husserl & Schütz)

- One has to place oneself in a context comprised of the various others and the collective shared experience of individuals and objects. - It is therefore not about the individual ego of the designer; rather we, in living together, that we understand the world.

WHAT IT MEANS

Individual (subjective) understanding of the lifeworld

Lifeworld

Sociological (- Habermas)

-  Viewpoint of an objective reality of the society, taking account the social and material environmental conditions and their relevance -The view of the lifeworld is more or less the "background" environment of competences, practices, and attitudes representable in terms of one's cognitive horizon -lifeworld as consisting of socially and culturally sedimented linguistic meanings

Sociological (- Habermas)

WHAT IT MEANS - the focus here thus is not on the consciousness of the individual, but to understand the practical rationality that is being governed by the rules of that system - Social coordination and systemic regulation occur by means of shared practices, beliefs, values, superstitions, alternate and parallel governing bodies and structures

Individual (subjective) understanding of the lifeworld

Rules of governing

Practices Beliefs Superstitions Agreements

Lifeworld View from the rules of the system Towards an objective reality Of that what is agreed upon and governed by and followed

Epistemological - touches upon the notion of ‘life conditions’ as a further reference point to understanding the social space. - life conditions include material and immaterial living circumstances as for example employment situation, availability of material resources, housing conditions, social environment (friends, foes, relatives, etc.) as well as the persons physical condition.

WHAT IT MEANS - It is entrusted on top of the lifeworld and the Social and material environment conditions.

Epistemological

Individual (subjective) understanding of the

lifeworld

Understanding the life conditions that are a result of the rules and the individual’s positioning in the lifeworld

Viewing within and Of Life Conditions

Rules of governing

Practices Beliefs Superstitions Agreements

Life conditions

BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU SEE IN WHAT YOU HEAR IN WHAT YOU FEEL IN WHAT YOU EXPERIENCE

INSPIRE IDEATE IMPLEMENT

WICKED PROBLEMS - Rittel & Webber [ 1973]

With social design you would run into Wicked Problems

“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.” - Laurence J. Peter

It is a class of social system problems, which are •  ill-formulated, •  the information is confusing, •  there are many clients and decision makers with

conflicting values, •  the ramifications of the whole system are

thoroughly confusing, •  it is messy, circular, and aggressive,

extraordinarily difficult to categorize or define.

CHARACTERISTICS

DEFINING WICKED PROBLEMS IS IN ITSELF A WICKED PROBLEM

ALL PROBLEMS ARE OPPORTUNITIES

IN DISGUISE

Multiple starting points and often no clear end mark the characteristics of wicked problems as the solution are intermingled with another problem within the same social space and share a causal relation to each other

Anand K, Haag J; “A framework for teaching Design for Social Impact , Feb 2013

COMMUNICATE COLLABORATE

CREATE

RESEARCH AGENDA

CONTEXT •  Understand context properly •  Talk to and study different stakeholders

IDENTIFY •  Large problem space •  Small problems in large

problem space and how they connect with each other

USER GROUPS •  Identify different user

groups •  Differentiate between

target group and affected group

Empathize •  Remember cultural rules •  Do not hurt sentiments

ANALYSIS

CREATE SOLUTIONS Do not make just some noise

CREATE SOLUTIONS Break patterns & set norms Change systems

INCLUSION Design with (not for) to create change

INCLUSION Design with input and involvement of beneficiaries

QUESTION How can things be better?

MEASURE The outcomes of the work done and not just rely on Outputs

h"p://www.slideshare.net/CharlesGYF/six-‐habits-‐of-‐social-‐entrepreneurs

h"p://www.slideshare.net/CharlesGYF/six-‐habits-‐of-‐social-‐entrepreneurs

IDEATION

Product

Product in

system


DCI: Divergence – Convergence - Integration


System-Product Harmonization


Social Design process


MEASURING IMPACT

a) Short term b) Long term

a) Tangible b) Intangible

THANK YOU Email: [email protected] Twitter: @kshitiz