KARMA: Design for Social Impact Toolkit

My thesis explores the eld of Social Impact Design and determines a methodology that designers can leverage to design with better impact. Addressing highly complex issues requires a multidisciplinary approach. When design is incorporated into the problem-solving process, its human-centered principles and methodologies lead to stronger solutions. Social issues such as poverty, unemployment, homelessness, caste system, sexual harassment, and gender inequality are associated with Wicked Problems. These Wicked Problems–like economic, environmental, political, and bureaucratic issues–create even more intricate global dilemmas. Understanding these extremely complex issues and applying design thought process, allows for even greater strides toward making an impact. Design needs to be practiced not just in form, function, and aesthetics but also with an added sense of responsibility and purpose. This concept of design with a social conscience and an intent to make an impact, is something that needs to be recognized more by design students. Through extensive research, I have identified a methodology that allows designers to efficiently implement the principles of Social Impact Design, and design solutions with better impact. One of the tangible outcomes of my thesis is a framework of a mobile application for designers. Through the use of interaction and user experience design, the app will enable designers to: access a curated list of creative processes; experience social issues and associated wicked problems through a challenging activity; showcase and discuss their design strategy, plan, and ideation; connect with like-minded individuals and execute their solutions; lead by example and inspire others to get involved. My thesis aims to be effective in mobilizing and collating information about social impact design and to help improve community strength. Whether or not my thesis produces the desired effect, the knowledge and experience derived, is extremely valuable in my pursuit of Design for Social Impact

Sustainability in the product design: A review of recent development based on LCA

In order to achieve sustainable product design process, aspects such of environmental, economic and social should be balanced. This paper discussed on sustainability of product design, conceptual basis of life cycle assessment (LCA), review of LCA at several product design, methodology of proposed framework and discussion on strengths and limitations of LCA. This paper proposed to develop a framework for improving the product design process based on LCA tool. The aims is to calculate potential impact of environment, eco-nomic and social aspects during product design process. For environmental aspects, LCA tool will be used. For economic and social considerations, life cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment will be applied respectively. At the end, proposed framework are able to help designers to improve product design by considering all sustainability aspects

Social Justice Documentary: Designing for Impact

Explores current methodologies for assessing social issue documentary films by combining strategic design and evaluation of multiplatform outreach and impact, including documentaries' role in network- and field-building. Includes six case studies

Embedding social innovation and social impact across the disciplines: identifying "Changemaker" attributes

Purpose—This paper proposes an attributes framework for embedding “Changemaker”—a university initiative for promoting social innovation and social impact—across the disciplines at the University of Northampton. Design/methodology/approach—The study is based on the authors’ (2014) phenomenographic study that proposed five different conceptions of Changemaker held by academic staff: 1) Changemaker as institutional strategy; 2) Changemaker as critical thinking, perspective shifting and problem solving; 3) Changemaker as employability; 4) Changemaker as social betterment and 5) Changemaker as personal transformation. The present study explores pedagogic literature to identify skills, behaviours and attributes associated with each of these five categories. Findings—Findings from this literature review inform a taxonomy of Changemaker attributes, which offers a catalogue of skills and behaviours associated with the five conceptions of Changemaker. Research limitations/implications—The conceptions of Changemaker, that form the basis of the Changemaker attributes, represent the beliefs of teaching staff at the University of Northampton. Despite inherent limitations, the approach of using practice-based empirical findings to develop pedagogical tools may be of direct benefit to other education providers as they develop their own models for teaching and learning. Practical implications—The Changemaker attributes will be used by the University of Northampton during the design, approval and review of courses to ensure that social innovation and social impact is embedded across the disciplines. Academic staff can refer these attributes when designing assessments and for inspiration toward innovative teaching practice. Originality/value—The findings of this study will provide a point of reference for other higher education institutions as they look for guidance on embedding social innovation and social impact into their curriculum

Value of a community football club

Research background The Centre for Sport and Social Impact (CSSI) at La Trobe University was commissioned by AFL Victoria to determine the social value of a \u27typical\u27 community football club; specifically its social, health and community impact. Research design The research design comprised two stages: Conducting nine case studies on the activities and outcomes of football clubs in various locations across Victoria developed through 110 in-depth interviews with club and community members; and A survey sent to all members of AFL Victoria football clubs across the state (with 1677 returned) examining individual health, well-being, trust and social connectedness. It is important to note that this research includes the views of people outside of football clubs. The research design deliberately sought to confirm the views of football club members with those in their communities in developing the case studies and comparing the results of the survey of football club members with the general community

Using social engagement to inspire design learning

Social design and ‘design for need’ are important frameworks for establishing ethical understanding amongst novice product designers. Typically, product design is a value-adding activity where normally aesthetics, usability and manufacturability are the key agendas. Howard [1] in his essay “Design beyond commodification” discusses the role of designers in contributing to cultural expressions designed to influence consumer aspirations and desires. He argues that designers are impelled “to participate in the creation of lifestyles that demand the acquisition of goods as a measure of progress and status.” As emerging consumers, student designers tend to reflect this consumer culture in their work, seeking to add ‘marketability’ by focusing on aesthetic development. However value adding can occur in many different manifestations, often outside commercial expectations and the students’ experience. Projects that may be perceived as having limited market potential can often have significant personal impact for both recipient and designer. Social engagement provides a valuable insight for design students into the potential of design to contribute solutions to societal well-being, rather than serve market forces. Working in a local context can enhance this, with unlimited access to end users, their environs and the product context, enabling the development of user empathy and a more intgrated collaborative process. The ‘Fixperts’ social project discussed in this paper has proved to be an effective method of engaging undergraduate students in participatory design within their local community. This model for social engagement has provided an unprecedented learning experience, and established a strong ethical framework amongst Brunel design students

Angels in the architecture - and devils in the detail: how the learning space impacts on teaching and learning

An innovative classroom design pioneered in the US, which aims to facilitate greater student engagement, has been piloted in a UK University for the first time. This case study reflects on some of the advantages and the challenges of this technology rich learning space and considers its impact on curriculum design in a module which aims to develop academic, research and digital skills in first year students on an undergraduate Health and Social Care course

Valuing service design: Lessons from SROI

This paper describes lessons learned through the use of a Social Return On Investment (SROI) approach to evaluate a completed Service Design project with a large vocational training company. It is written by the Service Design team that led the original project and who subsequently used SROI to evaluate its impact. Experiencing the SROI evaluation process first-hand, in a live setting, is the approach by which the authors develop a discussion about its potential fit with Service Design processes. The SROI method enabled both the design team and the case-study organisation to acknowledge and measure additional social/stakeholder benefits created through the design work. These elements would not have been visible in a traditional ROI evaluation. There is the promise of a useful fit between SROI and Service Design in larger projects. The approach could be used as a framework for forecasting and evolving indicators for likely social impacts (and their financial proxies) throughout a Service Design project, to guide decisions at each stage. Its usefulness depends, however, on there being a will at Design Management level to rehearse the approach and develop tailored approaches towards it. In the current study, the method was found to be time-intensive for the Service Design team as lay-users and also for some key project stakeholders, but that could be better managed with experience. SROI will not suit every project, however may fit very well with those projects that already count a full business plan amongst their deliverables. One of the main limitations encountered in using the SROI process was difficulty identifying appropriate proxies for the calculations. It is proposed that social benefit might be expressed to multidisciplinary co-design teams through visual and emotive means rather than in quantitative, financial terms. Such ‘visual proxies’ would better fit with the semantic mode of design