Kshitiz Anand

I read a cartoon strip the other day.
One mother to the other: My son is with a book always! How cool is that!
The other mother: On that’s nice. His grades must be really good then as he is with a book always.
First mother: He is on FaceBook. :)

Have you been bit by the Facebook bug yet ? I must admit that I have been to some extent. However there have been many other issues of concern that I have been having. One of them being the importance of maintaining my privacy.

The way people use Facebook, Orkut and other social networking sites (SNS) have been a matter of interest to me. This difference is also a result of the cultural differences people have across countries. The fact is also that people have taken a conscious decision on their part (or alteast have thought about it), when it comes to decide what information that they want to share .

One of the things that I always face a problem is the amount of information that I would be sharing on these SNS. Facebook now is the first choice of people to share images amongst friends. I have heard many people request me to upload my professional photographs on Facebook.  I have done so only to a limited extent.

Another large chunk of people use Facebook as a way of letting the world know each and every activity that they do. I mean seriously, is there any reason why I should know in such detail what the other person is doing. If I do, then it is a serious case of intruding into the other person’s privacy. However, wait! I did not intrude… It’s you who made that information public. So there is something going on here and this is where the notion of Publicy comes into the picture. It is not to be confused with the original concept of Publicy, which was commonly understood as the opposite of privacy.

What i am really talking about, is the publicy in a different context. Laurent Haug, writes about this phenomenon in his blog post titled “Publicy, the re-birth of privacy” . I think the post captures the essence of the phenomenon that is hitting the young generation today and is definitely something to think over. I know for a fact that after reading his post, I rethought about the stuff I posted up on the SNS.

A workout plan

Also, now I realize that the more that I spend time on these SNS, the more stuck to my laptop I am. I get more addicted to it. The kind of activities do not involve taking up the quizzes of playing online games, but its mostly just meeting and talking to people. I often fail to make myself understand why I cannot just go out and meet people in person. I do realize that I am starting to have a more of a virtual life and presence than that in the physical space.

And I think that is wrong. There is a certain charm of meeting up people in person, and that cannot be replicated by any virtual experience, no matter how realistic they claim to be.

I am sure numerous others would be in a similar if not same position. And needless to say that due to this shortage of time spending outside, there are a lot of health issues that could come up.

Here is something of a workout that someone came up with. I think it is pretty cool and people should follow it! I admit to not having come even close, but everytime I see it, I feel guilty.

Increasing the User Experience in SNS, aims at retaining the users for a longer period of time. However this should not come at the cost of the other things.

At the same time, I am highly interested in, and have actually been thinking whether the power of the social networking, penetration of the mobile phones and other technology, can be used in the domains where they can actually make a larger difference and that is for the mankind.

Of late there has been a sudden rise in interest in the propagation of Design Thinking. The impetus  to this has been hugely due to some articles in the Harvard Business Review(last year), and  Businessweek (this year).

If the need of the hour is to think innovation and think beyond the obvious, Design Thinking is definitely an essential tool. A lot of companies like Apple, who are driven by Design, have been doing it for years now. A few more have joined the bandwagon, as mentioned in this another post by BusinessWeek.

Apart from these above, there has been the recent publicly available talk by Tim Brown at the TED conference this year. Brown is evangelizing that Design Thinking needs to go to a much larger scale and also that designers should start to think big.

Everyone seems to be acknowledging it. A few seem to understanding it, and a fewer seem to be to be understanding it. The interesting point about Brown’s talk is that he looks at going beyond the notion of consumerism with which Design has been traditionally associated with.

One of the other great design thinkers, who I admire, and have been a student of myself, Erik Stolterman also talks about the notion of Design Thinking in his blog Transforming Grounds. He also makes the very valid point that Design Thinking is been there since a long time and has found its applications in numerous fields.

I strongly believe that one of the areas where Design can play a huge role is Design for Social Impact. This also happened to be the topic of my Masters thesis at Indiana. The challenges are immense, and the solutions are rarer to find, and that is why Design Thinking becomes important.

The outcome of the application of Design Thinking to create Design Models, to create actual solutions for a social cause, is not been explored much. Therefore in the Design Research Company that I have started, Deskala, we are primarily aiming to achieve this. The questions that we ask day in and day out, in due course of our field studies, is how Design can be used to bring about the Social Change. Being in a country like India, where there is a certain amount of Social Innovation happening at the Base of the Pyramid, we stand a good chance to see the applicability of Design Thinking and its measure its success.

Design Thinking however need not be culminating in Social Innovations in the form of  products only. The outcome could be an interface, it could be a service that is designed, it could be a model etc. Because Design Thinking itself tends to see its application in different areas, the outcomes vary.

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.