Enabling Social Impact through Design

“In the 1990’s, design used to be about fancy products with big price tags, now design is about much more than that. Design is about a new way of thinking and approaching problem solving using a systematic process called ‘Design Thinking,’” explained Selvan Thandapani, Researcher at Centre for Development Finance (CDF) as part of a workshop on “Design for Social Impact.” The one-day workshop held on 1st March involved a group of thirty design students at the DJ Academy of Design in Coimbatore and was conducted by Selvan and Pooja Bhatia, also a Researcher at CDF. The workshop is a precursor to a larger workshop that will be conducted at the India HCI Conference at IIT-Bombay at the end of March.

Design Thinking, a phrase coined by David Kelly, Founder of IDEO, is gaining popularity as a welcome alternative to traditional solution-based problem solving approaches. Instead of focusing so much on the end-result, it is a method that emphasizes the importance of a systematic process to ensure that eventual solutions are looking at the problem holistically and from a solid prospective rooted in context and human behavior.

Students were introduced to the topic through a series of videos, examples and a case study on improved cook stoves, a project taken up by the Rural Market Insight (RMI) team over the past few months. This project, along with much of RMI’s other research work has followed the ‘Design Thinking’ process closely, using an adapted, 3-step version including: Learning (the problem area and identifying key parameters), Conceptualizing (the cause and effect towards a few specific parameters) and finally, Ideating (creative solutions for a particular cause).

After the concept introduction, the design students, a mix of Industrial and Communication designers, were asked to use the same process to work on a range of issues that affect each of us in our everyday lives – from public transportation inefficiencies and problems pedestrians face on the roads to even thinking about how the students can green their own college campus. The students brainstormed with their fellow classmates and were encouraged to try and take action on their ideas.

Image1_DSI

Image2_DSI
Students at the workshop

The goal of the workshop is to expose students to the important role design can play in all aspects of problem solving, especially the impact design can have on social and economic development. Spreading the values of creativity, out-of-the box reasoning and thinking differently, our hope is that students will apply the ‘Design Thinking’ process and design principles to their everyday lives, and towards making a larger positive impact on their communities and beyond. After all, according to Canadian designer, Bruce Mau, “It is not about the world of design, it is about the design of the world.”

—

Selvan Thandapani and Pooja Bhatia, Researchers for the Rural Market Insight team at Centre for Development Finance, IFMR, contributed this post.