service design for the poor?

how service design thinking can help to design better services for the poor

PRITI RAO

Design PhD Conference 2009 Lancaster University

“ the world’s cleverest designers cater to the globe’s richest 10 percent creating items like wine labels, couture and Maseratis”

Dr. Polak in New York Times 29 May 2007

Bottom of the pyramid (population & consumption)

World Bank (2008)

state of essential services

1.6 billion people have no electricity

1.1 billion people don't have enough water (less than 20 litres per day)

824 million people are malnourished

121 million children are not in school

World Bank (2008), UNICEF (2005)

central research question

can service design thinking help to understand and design better services for the poor?

Real world context and question

The research country: India

world’s largest democracy world’s 4th largest economy largest number of poor (456 million people living on less than $1.25 a day)

Survey of India (2009)

artisans in Orissa

sub-central research question

What types of service design(s) are likely to enable artisans to improve their livelihoods?

enabling service design

contribution to knowledge

generate characteristics of an ‘enabling service design’ in the artisan context; and

ways in which service design thinking could be used to arrive at this, in the larger context of services for the poor.

RESEARCH CYCLE (Jan 08 to Jun 09)

Challenges and

Tips!!

Challenges °• getting the right Question ! • getting the right FIT !

• Structure

Tips!!

• reference everything you find

• methodology as Q & A

• WRITE & Re-write!

thank youpriti.rao@unn.ac.uk