STUDY: Identifying successful design processes for the humanitarian relief and transitional development market

What does it take for a product developer/designer to succeed in the market between an emergency and a transitional development phase? What characterises the design process and how do they retrieve the necessary information necessary to create enough insight to fill the high expectations of the international humanitarian aid organizations? What is the role of sustainability and usability within this sector?

Together with Ana Laura R. Santos, a PhD Candidate from Delft Technical University, I will attempt to answer these questions through an interview study with well established product developers, that will take place this summer. The aim is to extract useful insights and perhaps a communication tool for developers and designers that work with relief settings.

The results will be presented and further discussed at the AidEx 2012 Exhibition in Brussels.

“Taking place on 24-25 October 2012 in Brussels, AidEx is the annual opportunity for humanitarian and development aid professionals to come together to shape the future and to facilitate improvements in the delivery of humanitarian aid and development.AidEx has been created with direct input from major NGOs and includes an exhibition, conference, practical workshops and networking opportunities.”

http://www.aid-expo.com/

Clean drinking water for Northern-Uganda: Industrial design project

In villages surrounding Gulu in Northern-Uganda, it rains approximately 4 to 5 months of the year. Surprisingly, there is very little clean drinking water accessible for the population of Northern-Uganda the rest of the year.

 

The project group ”Let it Rain” is created by students from the department of product design at NTNU (Norway) Technical University of Delft( the Netherlands), MIT (USA) and Makerere (Uganda) who met at the Rethink Relief conference in 2011. The challenge was proposed by Caritas in Gulu.

The project group plans to travel to Uganda in fall 2012 and spend 24 weeks developing a user friendly concept that will make it possible for households to collect drinking water themselves. We are currently in the process of planning and identifying funding partners.

Please get in touch if you have any input or interest in this project!

Socially responsible design (SRD) workshop in Guatemala

Together with Oscar Quan at INDIS, the industrial design research institute at Guatemala’s Universidad Rafael Landivar (URL), I conducted a short study trip to the highlands of Guatemala. For many of the third year design students from NTNU as well as the students from URL this was the first encounter with ‘real needs’ challenges on their path to becoming industrial designers. 

The first project we visited was Transitions, an NFP in the beautiful UNESCO town of Antigua half an hour west of Guatemala City. Transitions builds tailored low-cost wheel chairs for children and adults, with very simple methods and with few funds. The students were clearly impressed and many of them chose to focus on the challenges of Transitions during their two day workshop back at URL. By lake Atitlan we visited some traditional textile production facilities and were introduced to coloring and weaving techniques typical for Guatemala.

We later visited a transitional shelter project in San Lucas Tomilán  where we were guided by one of the managers through a tiny village mostly consisitng of plastic sheeting from USAID. In May of 2010, torrential rainfall from Tropical Storm Agatha spurred devastating landslides in Guatemala’s highland communities and widespread flooding in lowland coastal areas. More than 150 people lost their lives, and thousands were left homeless as a result of this event. In conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) and other donors, Catholic Relief Services and local partners launched a multisector response to help families build safe, durable and environmentally responsible transitional shelters.

Once back at the university, I divided the students into 5 groups, who all chose a challenge from the projects visited for creative problem solving. We worked on solving the identified problems for two days, so the outcomes were on the concept level.

Most of the groups chose a system or product design challenge connected with the wheelchair project, while one group chose to focus on the problems with air quality and lighting in the shelter project. Please contact me directly if you have any inquieries regarding the projects or the outcome of the workshop.

Design workshop in Guatemala

I find myself in Guatemala City, preparing for 20 students to arrive from the department of product design in Norway. Tomorrow morning we get up as early as the birds to travel through beautiful landscapes to lake Atítlan, where we will see some shelter and artesanal projects together with designstudents from URL here in Guatemala City. I look forward to posting beautiful photos from our trip and also from the results of the workshop that we will have at the end of the week.

Participate! Questioning the link between participation and empowerment in design for development

ABSTRACT

Participatory design methods are embraced by most design professionals, teachers in “the field” and academics working with design that aims for empowerment and poverty alleviation. That participatory methods lead to empowerment amongst the poor, marginalized participants and communities is left rather unquestioned by most of this literature and the practitioners undertaking such projects in developing countries.

When comparing design research to development research on this area(Cooke and Kothari 2001; Hickey and Mohan 2004), one will come to realize that designers can benefit from a reality-check of their assumptions concerning participatory methods and empowerment in design for development projects. Sufficient and transparent research on this field will lead to designers knowing when and where participatory methods shall be used, or how they can be adjusted for the intended purpose of long term sustainable development of the communities involved.

By taking a theoretical stand on a practical “design paradigm”, this article explores the possible limitations and even negative effects that participatory design methods may have on empowerment. The literature comparison will also highlight further research needed and alternatives to participatory methods. 

Key words:  participatory design, participation, empowerment, design for development, development studies

Cooke, B. and U. Kothari (2001). Participation: The new tyranny?, Zed Books.

Hickey, S. and G. Mohan (2004). Participation: from tyranny to transformation?: exploring new approaches to participation in development, Zed books.

Gaia Project video

http://vimeo.com/9513803

Have a look at this video if you are interested in knowing more about the challenges and the reasons for providing sustainable, life-changing energy solutions to refugee camps.

“Cooking like never before, refugees lives are transformed thanks by a simple stove. This video features “Wavin’ Flag” by hip-hop star K’naan and is directed by filmmaker Jake Boritt. This film premiered at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15).

Project Gaia is bringing an energy revolution to the developing world. Every day thousands of people become ill or die from inhaling the polluting smoke of indoor cooking fires. Project Gaia is part of a global initiative to develop and promote clean-cooking alcohol stoves and fuels for people living in poverty. Thanks to K’naan, Sol Guy and David Boxenbaum at A&M/Octone Records and Bole to Harlem. “

OUT OF CONTEXT: Exploring the role of ethnographic interview technique in enabling an empathic approach to humanitarian design

Please contact me if you want to read this article.

ABSTRACT

This article explores the potential of open-ended, ethnographic interviews of resettled refugees in Norway to allow for an understanding that can direct us in a more empathic, culturally sensitive design approach for humanitarian design. User-centered, participatory design methods focus on the importance of understanding, including and empowering the end-user through the concept development, by including the end-user of the product or system. Alternatives are needed for empathic designers when field access proves unfeasible and hinders participatory design methods. A better understanding of how to include the refugee perspective is needed. Current theories especially emphasize so-called “empathic design-methods” and the necessity of designing for the “cultural context”. These theories therefore imply that people have a static culture and a set value system. When people are displaced and have gone through life-changing events, they have been uprooted and their individual and collective cultural identities interrupted. The interview presented tries to grasp how identities are dynamic and how a long term stay in a refugee camp may affect an individual’s belief in their own capacities; self-reliance.

 Key words: humanitarian design, empathic design, refugee anthropology, ethnographic interview, refugee camp, identity, self-reliance