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Concept
Social design
Summary
Social design is the application of design methodologies in order to tackle complex human issues, placing the social issues as the priority. Historically social design has been mindful of the designer's role and responsibility in society, and of the use of design processes to bring about social change. Social design as a discipline has been practiced primarily in two different models, as either the application of the human-centered design methodology in the social sector or governmental sector, or sometimes is synonymously practiced by designers who venture into social entrepreneurship.
Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d school) and IDEO collaboratively created interdisciplinary research in 1991 in order to improve the design process, and from that, Stanford's model of design thinking as a process emerged. The Stanford model has been applied to social design, where the goal is to develop both human and social capital with new products and processes that can be profitable, a goal that the anti-capitalist magazine In These Times called "naïve, at best".
Victor Margolin and Sylvia Margolin wrote in 2002 about the "social model" as a design practice and research methodology, primarily focused on social services but the ideas could be expanded in to educational systems, healthcare systems and for civic technology design. The social model involves a focus on human needs by taking inspiration from core social work literature and has an ecological perspective (that is less commonly seen in modes of design). Margolin suggests a multifaceted approach to solving problems, first accessing the situation by answering a few core questions, followed by survey research and interviews, content analysis of archival data, and/or participant observation.
The design firm, IDEO defines social design as a process that encourages community facilitation including the sharing of conversation and ideas, beliefs and rituals. The process should be supportive and empowering for those involved and offer an innovative and feasible process.
Official source
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