Kshitiz Anand

I came across this presentation on Design for Social Impact. I think its a great presentation, with some wonderful insights.

One of my favorite methods of User Research is Ethnography. It could also be the result of my love for traveling and photography.

Historically, ethnography has been used as a research tool in Anthropology and also made an appearance in the other fields like Documentary film making, Market Research etc. In HCI, Ethnography is often aimed at doing, but is unable to be carried out effectively, owing to the large amount of planning that one needs to go through, especially when the time is short and there is quick research to be done.

In the context of Designing for Social Impact, Ethnography holds a special place. The following diagram would explain the areas on which one needs to concentrate in the context of the social innovations. Framing the situation from the Design perspective, becomes crucial. And ethnography is a great tool to enable the design researcher to come up with answers to these points as one gets to analyze the situation closely by staying within the context.

Designing for Social Innovations

Any problem space can be said to be a design space. And within that design space lies a design problem. One has to however justify, why the problem at stake is a design problem and not say some other problem. Can governance problem be classified as a design problem? Can the lack of facilities in a rural school be classified as a design problem? Any problem that is identified, will give rise to a Design Opportunity. Once that has been understood, it is an imperative on the part of the designer to apply proper Design Thinking in order to come up with Design Solutions. So, in the case of our examples, would ensuring a better governance system, be a well ‘Designed Solution’ or a ‘Design Solution’ . Finally do a collective of design solutions lead to better ‘Design Service’, or better ‘Designed Service’. Can Service be Designed?

With the help of an ethnographic research, (even if it means for a small duration of time), one is able to get an answers to a lot of these questions.

What comes out of this small exercise is a set of parameters on which Design can be propagated amonsgt designers who are interested in the application of Design in different areas.

Of late I have been traveling around India. In context of designing for social impact I have always been observant to how design is playing a role and how and where design can further play a role. There have been numerous occasions where I have got some answers. The journeys have been mostly done in the different kind of trains, the auto-rickshaws, the private vehicles and also on foot.

Needless to say there have been numerous occasions where you feel like doing something. There is an abundance of issues that in my opinion need the services of a designer. Every step I took, made me realize the importance of being a HCI designer. One of the greatest learnings that I have taken out of my masters education is the value of seeing problems and design solutions from a HUMAN point of view. The moment one does that a lot of things appear different. And I am not saying from a USER point of view here. In my opinion they are both different.

A HUMAN point of view allows me as a designer to not think deeply about the solutions, but the needs. It allows the designer to take care of the emotions and the pain as felt by humans. After all in the end the designer is also a Human. The USER point of view that usually results from the personas, or by studying the likely people who will use the design solution. More often than not, the designer fails to connect with the person on the level that one experiences the similar joys and pains.

Another realization is that even if you implement the design in a novel manner, how do you ensure that the user’s behavior is changed? For example, you can have the best facilities for a reservation counter, but people still spit around it after chewing their betel leaves? Or you have the dividers in a road, and have lane discipline, but people still do not follow it.

I think as a major challenge for designers like me who are interested in looking into designing for social impact, it becomes essential to understand how small design decisions can enforce the user to change their habits. For example, one of the thing I realized was to avoid giving the user too many options, and hence reduce the chances of error. Will write more with an example more concretely soon.