Social Design.Exposed.

September 2010, for peer review

Lucy Fraser, s3203390, Methods and Research with Simone Leamon

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Contents

Title

Inquiry

Keywords

Abstract

Proposal

Methods

Practices

Conclusion

Bibliography

Page

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Social Design Exposed

How can Social Design be made more accessible to Designers?

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Keywords

Social Design

Humanitarian Design

Change agents

Design Activism

Social worth

Responsibilities

Consequence

Empowerment

Do Tanks (not ThinkTanks)

Social Entrepreneurship

Design Futuring (not Defuturing)

Design Intelligence (not Intelligent Design)

Parachute or Remote design

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Abstract

The age of taking is over. People the world over are now aware (whether by choice or not) of their responsibility to give as well as take. NGO’s are abundant, social entrepreneurship is bathing in the media spotlight and sustainability is a term so overused that nobody really knows what it means anymore. So, as indus-trial designers, what is our responsibility?

“There are professions more harmful than design, but only a very few of them.”Victor Papanek, ‘Design for the Real World: human ecology and social change’

But perhaps designers are only harmful due to how they employ their immense in!uence? If this strength was used for good instead of harm, perhaps design could become one of the leading powers for positive social change.

This enquiry aims to establish social design as a practice that should be adopted without excuse by industrial designers, and propose a service that will help de-signers do so.

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Proposal

De"nition

Social design company ‘Project H’ say their

Ultimate goal is to design something that empowers someone to do something else. Something that enables.

Emily Pilloton, Project H DesignXD Inspire, Episode: What designers can do: Emily Pilloton and Project H

Social design will be de"ned as the following for the purpose of ‘Social Design Exposed’ (SDE):

‘Design that empowers people for the greater good.’

Background

Social, or humanitarian, design has an immense presence in the world, but in or-der to "nd it, you have to go looking. When you do, Google leads you on a seem-ingly never ending tour of people doing, talking about, explaining and evaluat-ing social design. The names are endless; Design that Matters, Design 21, Social Design Site, Project M, The Designers Accord and Design for the First World are just a few of the very professional and highly polished web sites around.

The majority of these enterprises, however, tend to see social design as assisting the disadvantaged in far away, third world countries. Often called ‘parachute’ or ‘remote’ design, as the designers often swoop in, solve the problem, then leave again, Project H Designs’ "rst project was one like this.

Project H have been criticized for this project (the Hippo Roller). Writers, includ-ing Bruce Nussbaum in his Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism? article, suggested that it is unethical for designers to attempt to solve the problems of communities they are not familiar, intimate or experienced with. It is true that in scenarios like this there is a great potential for solutions that look good to the western world but may be short term or impractical for the end user. Project H

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Design has since agreed that, though the outcome had potential for success, the process was a little misguided. They have since decided to focus only on local problems, saying it enables designers,

‘to understand what the local context is and within that context to isolate what the issues are and where the points of entry are as a designer.’

SDE learns from this lesson and will look at social design from a local standpoint. This raises the interesting question of whether third world countries, those with arguably the biggest problems, have the design power to solve them. This will be brie!y investigated in the project, but is not the main topic of concern.

Aims

The aim of the SDE investigation is to get industrial, and other, designers, in-cluding students, teachers, professionals and hobbyists, to be more interested in, informed about and devoted to social design. It will provide them with tools to ‘problem "nd’ in their community in order to discover how they can incorporate local social design into their existing work.

SDE will attempt to achieve this by highlighting the immense in!uence design has, and how great positive change can come of this. It will supply a set of case studies as well as a list of framed problems existing in the designer’s local area, and the information surrounding these. It will also suggest ways that social de-sign can be pro"table to the designer, and not only in the "nancial sense.

Possible Outcomes

The proposed way to achieve these aims and supply these services is through a web site.The online resource would contain the following:

ABOUT- An introduction to what social design is and the purpose of the web site.

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CASE STUDIES- A database of existing social designers and social design "rms with interview, histories, tips and links.

FORUM- A space for designers and other relevant groups such as entrepreneurs, investors and government representatives to meet. It will be a casual space for discussion, idea generation and information sharing, with the potential of forging new busi-ness relationships.

LOCAL ISSUES- A database of local concerns from as many major cities around the globe as pos-sible. Each scenario will be framed and contextualised in order to provide as much insight as possible. Major stakeholders will be listed and possible contacts and resources will be supplied.

Level of completion

SDE will be a fully functioning web site. At this initial stage, however, case stud-ies will be limited, and the ‘local issues’ section will only include issues from Mel-bourne, SDE’s local area.

Impacts

The SDE project outcomes will a#ect design students, teacher, professionals and hobbyists all over the globe. They will use the web site as a tool to learn and to educate others. The web site will ideally mean they occasionally change their design process and focus to incorporate social design.

These designers will in turn a#ect their local community; other designers, those whose concerns they attempt to overcome, the government, entrepreneurs, in-vestors and potentially also a#ect tourists, the community spirit, local communi-cation and more, all in a positive way.

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Method

Interviews

Interviews will be conducted in order to get qualitative, primary source informa-tion for the web site, in particular the ‘case study’ and ‘local issues’ sections.

The case studies will require interviews with successful social designers and so-cial design "rms. Each interviewee will be asked a standard set of questions as well as a few that relate to their speci"c focus or unique experience. This will enable a standard framework for all the case studies to be put on the web site, allowing for easier browsing.

Brief interviews will also be conducted for the ‘local issues’ section of the web site, this time interviewing stakeholders of the issue. Those interviewed will range from the end users and those working and living with them through to local de-signers, government representatives, relevant local and international businesses and investors.

These interviews will be valuable as each will provide a unique insight to social design and the design problems it attempts to solve, that would be unimagi-nable by someone less experienced.

SDE will strive to keep questions from being leading and make sure they are not biased. The interview results will be left as is for the public to take as they will, leaving it up to them to compare interviews and counter bias in the responses.

Surveys

This research technique will be used to assist the construction of the web site. The potential users of the web site will be surveyed in order to discover what the web site needs to be in order to be successful.

The surveys will focus on the main target market, industrial designers, whether they be students, teachers, professionals or hobbyists. Samples of this market to survey will be found in RMIT and through contacts of RMIT citizens.

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They will be asked questions about what their ideal learning tool would be, how they communicate online, whether they would participate in forums or "nd case studies helpful, among other things. A quantitative pool of data will be collected, from which design decisions will be made diplomatically (e.g. if most responders want a forum, a forum will be created).

SDE will make sure the survey is not threatening nor the questions leading. The names of those surveyed will not be asked for. Instead, a coding system will be utilised in the case of the individual surveys being required.

Non-Hierarchical Mind Mapping

In order to further understand the stakeholders involved in the SDE project, and their relationships, this form of mind mapping will be used. It will allow for a vi-sualisation of the scenario and it’s context without the constraints of hierarchical and hub mind mapping, where factors must be decided as more or less impor-tant than others. It will, however, be a challenge to keep this style of mind map clear and easy to read.

The results of this research will assist with presenting the information with clar-ity, as well as the construction of an easy to negotiate web site.

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Practice

Design Futuring

‘Futuring at its most obvious, means giving the self (as the embodied mind acting in the world) a future. This turns in two directions: !rst, towards the being and care of the self and second, toward the care of the conditions in which the self is in being.’

Fry, T. ‘Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice’

‘Design Futuring needs to be circumstantially and critically responsive to the minds, dreams, feelings, material conditions, dispositions, values and beliefs of the people within the world they inhabit’

Fry, T. ‘Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice’

One of the larger ideas behind social design is design futuring. Social design aims to provide a better future for people, by attempting to !atten the playing "eld, so to speak. It endeavours to help individuals and communities be the best they can be.

SDE will try to keep the values of design futuring in mind when conducting its project, in particular those outlined in the second quote. They are some of the keys to successful social design, and these values should also act as a safe guard against parachute-design-like behavior.

Understanding the World Wide Web

One of the downfalls of SDE is that it requires a great deal of tech know-how to achieve the development and running of a very complex web site. In order to overcome the current skill de"ciency in this area in the short time given, SDE will employ the help of short courses, and consider hiring a web designer.

This will allow SDE to be up to date with current web technologies, which in turn will increase the chances of catching the target market’s eye.

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Conclusion

The ‘Social Design Exposed’ Project takes on ground that is still new in the design world. The project will take designers who have never heard of social design, or simply want to know more about it, on a journey that will ultimately lead them to an in-depth understanding of the topic, and a desire to incorporate it locally in their design process and design focus.

The ripple e#ect will be signi"cant; these designers will spread the word, and soon every local community will show signs of positive social change. It will be a great example of design futuring.

From this point, the SDE web site will be maintained and expanded as more com-munities get on board and provide information for their area. Ideally the site will be self perpetuating (with the assistance of site managers and the like).

Leaping into the future, social design will be expected of every respected design-er and design "rm (no matter how known or unknown) and it will be a matter of pride for designers to develop solutions that are sustainable for the end user.

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Bibliography

(2009). XD Inspire, Episode: What design can do: Emily Pilloton and Project H, Adobe Systems Incorporated. Ciecka, A. and M. Jeter (2009). “SoftSpot.” Retrieved 11/09/10, from http://www.thesoftspot.org/. Felissimo and UNESCO. “Design 21.” Retrieved 20/08/10, from http://www.design21sdn.com/. Fry, T. (2009). Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practic. Oxford, Berg Editorial Of-"ces. Design Futuring systematically presents ideas and methods for Design importance in overcoming a world made unsustainable.

Kerr, R. “Social Studio.” from www.socialstudio.org. Kokotovich, V. (2007). Problem analysis and thinking tools: an empirical study of non-heirarchi-cal mind mapping. Sydney, University of Tecchnology, Sydney, Faculty of Design Architecture & Building: 49-69. Nussbaum, B. (2010) Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism? Papanek, V. J. (1985). Design for the Real World: human ecology and social change. Chicago, Chi-cago, III: Academy Chicago. Pilloton, E. (2009). “Project H Design.” Retrieved 27/07/10, 2010, from projecthdesign.org. Pilloton, E. (2009). Design revolution : 100 products that empower people New York, NY, Me-tropolis Books: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers. Pilloton, E. (2010). “Are Humanitarian Designers Imperialists? Project H Responds.” from http://www.fastcodesign.com/1661885/are-humanitarian-designers-imperialists-project-h-responds. Unknown. “Design for the First World.” Retrieved 17/08/10, from designforthe"rstworld.com. Various. “Social Design Site.” Retrieved 17/08/10, from http://www.design21sdn.com/. Various. “Project M Lab.” Retrieved 20/08/10, from www.projectmlab.com/. Various (2002-2010). “Design That Matters.” Retrieved 26/07/10, 2010, from designthatmatters.org. Various (2007). “The Designers Accord.” Retrieved 21/08/10, from www.designersaccord.org.