Design for development: a review of emerging methodologies

Design with the other 90%: Cumulus Johannesburg Conference Proceedings, 2014

This paper critically describes a design methodology for achieving socially important goals through design. Such a methodology combines the best of human-centred and participatory design methodologies with critical social science and action research. This paper describes how design can be used in a multi-stakeholder context that attempts to create opportunities for urban agriculture in a changing food system. The paper describes a method that integrated urban farmers, industrial designers, development practitioners and government officials in the design process. It describes how designers and social scientists should immerse themselves in the lifeworld of their participants, how they should engage with them and what can be done to reflect critically on the process of designing with the other 90%.

MX Design Conference 2009 Impacto Social del Diseño, 2009

During the past five years I have worked on collaborative, interdisciplinary projects with indigenous community organizations and disciplinary experts in Mexico. Participating in these projects, intended to provide long-term stimulus for economic growth, has altered our approach to projects, our design process, and, as a result added to our methodological and intellectual design toolkit. Using examples and lessons learned from projects, I discuss some of the inclusive, socially responsible, and sustainable philosophies, strategies, and tactics we use – focusing on field research, ethnographic methods, sustainability, and responsible cultural representations to demonstrate how design can be used to foster development.

Question: Can participatory design effect a reduction in the violence we are witnessing in today's society? Disenfranchisement is one of the root causes for the upsurge of extreme social friction we are witnessing today, and this feeling can be reduced by incorporating participatory design into new urban projects. Particularly, housing developments built by authorities for those on the low end of the socioeconomic scale, where it seems, most of these perpetrators of violence are found and groomed. Thus, it could be argued that participatory design can effect a positive change within a group of people, therefore society. Current examples of housing for low income families, when contrasted against this new model that has emerged, demonstrate the advantages of this design model as a basis to form cohesion between diverse community members. One well documented participatory example from the Brighton area of the United Kingdom is an excellent exemplar when contrasted against the traditional model. This new model of incorporating community interaction as part of the urban planning design criteria breaks down insular lifestyles thus diminishing the tendency for social or religious disenfranchisement and the resultant social problems.

Cross-Cultural Design, 2017

The dimensions of understanding and involving users and their context while constructing a system have become important. Participatory Design has shown promising success in recent times. The concept of Participatory Design originates from developed countries [11, 13, 16, 17]. Its nature and methods are more oriented toward the Western setting where there is more privilege in terms of economy, education, and technology and a different socioeconomic context. However, in the Developmental context, these presumptions may operate differently. In this paper, we critique the operationalization of Participatory Design in a healthcare case study in a developmental context. The study was conducted in urban-poor areas in a metropolitan city in India with 5 users individually, by a Designer and Public Health policy student. All users were recruited on the basis of their education (not more than 8th standard) and the age of their child (below 18 months). This paper reports findings on various factors such as social-cultural barriers, family power hierarchy, language barriers, power distance issues which affect and limit an attempt to facilitate Participatory Design in a developmental context.

2015

In the western part of the world, the concept of design is increasingly perceived as a central means of how we organize the world and imbue it with (cultural) meaning, rather than a quality attached to material objects. In this article we are interested in what concept of design is implied in typical design training activities in different cultural contexts (Morocco, India, Thailand, Mexico, and Singapore). Inspired by the questions that have arisen in connection with project experience and research done by the authors in many countries, this survey outlines approaches and efforts to establish design competence with a particular paradigm to the fostering of sustainable economic and cultural development in local communities. Having worked with development projects involving various aspects of design, we have chosen to study projects with clear design goals as examples of how diverse the interpretation of the concept of design can be. These observations may stimulate an awareness of t...

The Future of Transdisciplinary Design, 2021

This exploratory study characterizes two transdisciplinary humancentered design approaches for creating novel products or services for poverty alleviation. Transdisciplinary design involves the integrated use of tools, techniques, and methods from multiple disciplines in one holistic process. The term discipline includes academic fields of study that are taught in universities, as well as specialized expertise that are developed through life experience. Two pioneering organizations were selected to be exemplary case studies based on their high regard and influence within the design industry, social sector, and academia. This paper highlights similarities and differences between the design thinking approach practiced by IDEO.org (a nonprofit design consultancy) and the Creative Capacity Building approach developed by the International Development Design Summit (an educational organization hosting annual innovation conferences). IDEO.org's teams of professionals (e.g., industrial designers, engineers, or business strategists) develop innovative products and services for implementation by partners serving low-income communities. IDDS teaches people from all walks of life (e.g., villagers, mechanics, students, teachers, doctors, economists, priests, masons, and artists) to create technologies and launch enterprises for poverty alleviation. The objective is not to determine which approach is better, but to determine what can be learned from IDEO.org about designing with established organizations, and from IDDS about teaching budding innovators to be grassroots change agents.

2012

This article is a call to describe Participatory Design (PD) projects in the making, i.e. to show how the heterogeneous elements in the field are gradually organised in a participatory manner as the projects progress. It is based on two arguments. The first is a negative argument. Very often, PD projects are not described in the making. As a result, the landmarks to be used to evaluate them remain unclear or invisible. The second argument is of a more positive nature. The articles that do describe projects in the making enable landmarks to be defined that can be effectively used to evaluate PD projects. The notion of emerging groups is one of these landmarks.

This paper aims to present a project carried out by a student of the Design M aster's at Universidade de Aveiro, which consists of a Food Diary supported by a ludic and pedagogical kit implemented in 1st grade schools.

Design with the Developing World (DDW) brings a unique set of project challenges as it asks people with very different technological relationships to collaborate on sustainable system solutions. Scoping the level of backgrounds and equalizing experiences for a design project is therefore highly challenging, as there is little information on what needs to be considered in this vast collaborative and interdisciplinary process. This study identifies, and analyzes the barriers and enablers extracted from a selection of DDW literature, and clusters this data into core themes of user, designer and stakeholder interactions. As a whole, we find that DDW projects need to grow relationships between Users, Stakeholders, and Designers. Users, Stakeholders, and Designers all have very different relationships with each other, and must come to understand each other to create a new hybrid technology, as well as the supporting systems. Although some gaps exist between Designers, Users, and Stakehold...

2018