Dear Azza,
In my modest opinion, I think we do need this and I intend to offer a start for this in a book I am currently finishing (co-authered with Paul Hekkert). Hopefully it’ll be published later this year with Bloomsbury.
In my view, doing social design practice without such theoretical framework, which roughly means applying (service) design methods and tools within public/social contexts in order to “solve" social or public issues, is limited and at some stage even problematic. I do not say it doesn't bring value, it does, but designing for societal needs requires different considerations and additional viewpoints than predominantly considering the current needs of service users, communities or citizens.
I feel that stating principles about the way of working within social design (e.g., designing with communities instead of for them) offer little ground for establishing social design as a new discipline and I may even disagree with some of them. I know it is controversial, but I argue that in some cases it might even be better to design without community/citizen involvement. I do agree that we have currently embedded our social and community values in large-scale systems and thereby we have sometimes disabled people to experience, enact and modify those values in the services society provides. Yet we neither should underestimate the quality of those systems we have been developing over the years. And a reactive response to the drawbacks of these systems by letting people explain their current experience with its services and design from there, is not the dominant path to building socially sustainable societal structures. We need more. Nonetheless, it is currently the dominant view in social design practice and research.
Paul and I argue for a science-based approach (building on social scientific and philosophical theory) to social design, and we offer a design approach in which long-term societal concerns are placed central within the design proces. The key here is to understand how to deal with conflicts that rise between short-term individual concerns and those of society at large in the long run. Another key-focus of the framework is to appreciate the value of the artefact in facilitating social change (which makes it a distinct approach from social welfare approaches and humanitarian actions) through its power to change behaviours. A focus on behaviour change does not only help designers to focus, it also fosters critical reflection on what behaviours are desirable from a social point of view and it helps measuring effectiveness and impact.
Let me know whether you wish to exchange any further thoughts on this. We might continue this off-the-list as well. In any case, I am curious why you where wondering in the first place.
Best, Nynke
Dr. ir. Nynke Tromp
Social Design & Behaviour Change
+31641206265
@NynkeTromp
On 08 Feb 2017, at 16:03, azza rajhi <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
theoretical framework for social design
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