Impact of Social Problem Design and Conditions for its Success
- Baik Joonsang
In this article, I will first introduce how social problem-solving design has evolved for the last 30 years, and as a result that we should approach social problem-solving design in a way different from the traditional design of a single product.
In particular, I will tell how it is important to assess the long-term performance of design, and the need to have a strong link to policy to successfully implement the design.
Evolution of social problem-solving design.
Design is indirectly and directly contributing to the industrial society’s various social and environmental problems including workers’ human right problem, economic inequality due to the separation between the production and consumption, and environmental pollution that occurs in the production process. Because of this, Victor Papanek, a renowned design critic, once said designers are harmful professions that damage the earth. As a reaction to this, for the last 30 years, the design field has taken various approaches to solve social problems and sustainable development. The first approach was “green design”. The goal of green design, which emerged in early 1990s, was to reduce social and environmental problems created during the production processes. The well-known examples that adopted the concept of green design include color pencils made of less harmful materials and shoes that were designed to produce less waste. The eco-design which appeared next, deals with the problems over the product’s lifecycle including distribution, consumption, disposal, etc., the problems that were overlooked by green design. For instance, Patagonia, a well-known eco-friendly clothing brand, reduces its carbon footprint not only by using eco-friendly materials but also by promoting a campaign to reduce unnecessary consumption and reuse and recycling of clothes. The “cradle-to-cradle design” and “sustainable product service systems design” inspired by nature find ways to make a shift from not-sustainable linear economy to a sustainable circular economy by reusing and recycling the disposed products and not owning but sharing products. In the mid-2000s, the design or social innovation appeared and highlighted design’s positive impact to create a sustainable society. Here, the role of design is to help make social innovation more visible, attractive, expanded, and relevant. In the late 2000s, “systems design” and “transition design” appear as an attempt to understand and solve society’s challenging and complicated problems from a system’s perspective. Looking at the trajectory of the evolution of various design approaches, from green design to system design, one can find that the design object has shifted from a single product to a system, and the center of design from the technology to human (Ceschin & Gaziliusoy, 2016). Also, the problems that design handles are becoming more complicated and difficult to solve. Likewise, as social problem-solving design shows different patterns from the conventional design, which is a single product design, the approach to the design should change too. In this article, I will talk about how social problem-solving design should be assessed and what kind of changes needed in terms of implementation.
Impact of social problem-solving design
A while ago, I had a chance to introduce social problem-solving design at an event held at a policy graduate school. I was asked from one of the attendees how impact of the social problem-solving design should be assessed. Throughout my observations and experiences of design projects, as far as I can remember, I’ve never seen a case where the design impact was assessed. The achievement of design can be largely divided into output, outcome, and impact. Output is a deliverable (e.g., a new product / service design) which a designer delivers as a result of a design project, outcome is a short-term goal of the design (e.g., user satisfaction and usability improvement), and impact means a long-term result achieved through design (e.g., reduced criminal rate, increased happiness index). In general, a design project is finished after showing an output or an outcome. It is difficult to show the impact of design because it is hard to measure. Impact is affected by various factors (e.g., the will of the implementing player / competence / resource, related policy and institution) other than design, therefore, the structure of assessment requires skilled and sophisticated design. The other reason is because a designer does not have a chance to measure the impact. Normally, a design project is finished before determining the design impact, therefore, it is practically difficult for a designer to measure impact, which takes time and money.
In the past when the design object was relatively simple (e.g., a single product), the effect of design was easily measured only with the output or outcome of the design. It is because when a product is more attractive and easier to use, it sells better in the market. However, as the design object became more complicated (e.g., a complicated service and system), output and outcome have become insufficient to estimate the effect of design. This is because in the latter case, the design is completed only after its usage by a user. For instance, let’s assume that a local government has adopted a crime prevention design to a crime-ridden district. Walls painted in bright colors, lights installed to shine dark alley, warning and notice (nicely designed by a designer) displayed in many places of the village, an abandoned house turned into a place of rest for residents, a stage for student performers, etc. the output of the design is very impressive. Both residents and local government officials are satisfied, and it looks like the new design would help reduce the appearance of gangsters who used to show up in the alley. However, for the crime rate to decrease and what’s more for the community to become safe and nice to live, stakeholders’ continued interests and the input of resources are required. That is, without sustained will to implement and efforts, the design will lead to produce a one-time deliverable. To assess the impact of design properly and correctly, a client should demand that the design bring real impact. Also, the design requirements should include impact measurement.
Conditions for the success of social problem-solving design
It is obvious that for social problem-solving design to have an impact, the design should be successfully implemented. And to successfully implement a design, not only the design itself matters but also the environment to implement the design should be prepared. To state this reversely, without a proper environment, the social problem-solving design can’t flourish. The environment for design includes policy, institution, culture, citizens’ mindset, values, history, and infrastructure. Here, I would like to stress the importance of policy. As mentioned earlier, designers have tried various approaches for sustainable development. However, from a macro perspective, the urgent and serious issues facing our society (e.g., climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, air pollution) still exist and get exacerbated. I would dare say that the reason why we are slow in the transition to a sustainable society is not because there are not enough design ideas, but it is because the design ideas are not implemented and diffused, and the environment to do so has not been created. In this context, Christian Bason, CEO of the Danish Design Centre claims to look into the relevant policy if the public service is not working well.
Policy support is essential for the social problem-solving design to succeed, likewise, for a policy to succeed, one needs design. Bason provides four points to explain how a designer can contribute to policy success. First, a designer sees a problem in a perspective different from a policy maker and therefore redefines a problem and find a chance to solve. Secondly, a designer changes peoples’ behavior by empathizing and understanding them. Third, a designer develops a prototype to reduce risk factors in the development process and creates an actionable solution. Lastly, a designer elaborates an abstract concept to effectively draw a difficult discussion related to a policy (Bason, 2020). As seen from here, design and policy need each other, but there is little agreement as to the two needing each other. For the social problem-solving design to succeed, we need a linker that connects a policy and design, which is a design for policy. A sustainable development is a learning process at a society’s level (Manzini, 2014) which happens very slowly. Unfortunately, we do not have much time to solve our hard-pressing issues. A design for policy, I believe, is the most effective tool to reduce the learning curve.
Reference
Ceschin, F. and Gaziulusoy, I., 2016. Evolution of design for sustainability: From product design to design for system innovations and transitions. Design studies, 47, pp.118-163.
Bason, C. Ed., 2020. Design for policy. Routledge.
Manzini, E., 2014. Making things happen: Social innovation and design. Design issues, 30(1), pp.57-66.
