Pushing against the system - designing for real change

Take a second to consider this design challenge, which was used in a local government design activity I recently took part in. 👇

Household waste is rife. So how might we tackle it? How might we help families in a culture of overconsumption to make more of what’s in their fridge, reduce their global footprint and save money into the bargain?

Cue design process bingo! Yes, we discussed:

• Codesign with household residents 
• The pros and cons of various research methodologies
• Surveys
• Diarising
• Sensors placed in fridges (really? Yes!)
• … and generally lots and lots talk of rootling about in bins 🍌

But if you slow down, doesn’t something seem a bit off about that challenge statement?

Doesn’t the challenge lay the responsibility for a solution to a huge societal issue at a purely household level?

Don’t blame the victim

Before I go any further I should say that the local gov design event itself was very well run and the organisers were lovely. But I was pretty vocal about what I thought was wrong about the design challenge. 😊

Because as a parent I of course know that food waste is a problem. I’m also reasonably privileged and in theory able to do something about it. But despite our family's best intentions, still we eat and still we waste. We struggle every day to avoid it but it happens. So hearing a design challenge which puts responsibility (and blame and guilt) on our family for such a big issue feels pretty dispiriting. 

Accounting for systems of influence

In reality, there are a range of hidden forces (and some less-so hidden) at work to make a wicked problem like this so wicked. From supermarkets that put expiring produce closer to the fore of the shelf, thereby passing on the risk of waste to the consumer (rather than, hey, just owning that risk and producing less themselves); to educational & cultural attitudes as to what is safe to keep, reheat or preserve. 

If households are placed at the epicentre of the problem, we can map a whole ecosystem of entities around them all exerting influence - supermarkets, schools, politicians, educational establishments, laws, advertisements and more.

Constraining the challenge purely at an individual household / end user level is limiting the ability to have impact and to pull all the levers that we have as designers, policy makers and citizens. 

For instance, one attendee at the design event, Aprit, raised a brilliant suggestion: there can be efforts made to bring people together across cultures to share how they use food: i.e. how they approach meal decisions, as well as ideas for recipes and leftovers.

It speaks to the idea that those affected by a problem often have the ability to solve it themselves, if given the right conditions. And that collectively, as a community of diverse backgrounds, activities and interests, together we hold the answers. 

This happened in the very meeting: when the subject of wasting rice came up, it produced a great discussion about its ability to be preserved, reheated and eaten (popular with South American and South Asian heritage attendees) vs. it’s ability to poison you immediately if you even so much as eat a spoonful of the reheated stuff (popular with lots of white British folk - who all seem to have attended the same food hygiene class).

Designers: don’t forget the wider system. And don’t forget the people.

So what can we learn from this?

Here’s a few ideas:

1. Whatever your design challenge, don’t fall into the trap of design being done to people. Lets not rush into putting sensors in the home, please.
2. Go beyond thinking that its ‘end users’ who hold the responsibility for change.
3. Do more to recognise the levers that you have at your disposal - societal, communal, commercial.
4. And accept your blind spots too. Accept that people will hold the answers. But not just in a ‘lets make sure we codesign with individual end users’ way (see point 2), but also that answers arise when people interact and learn and share from each other. So how might you as a designer facilitate these interactions?

And if you don’t think you have any more levers? If you don’t think your remit includes wider system design? Then speak up. Push up.

Because any little nudge that you can do at a system level means a greater chance to make change for the people you’re aiming to serve.