USING VISUAL CONVERSATIONS
TO BRIDGE THE DESIGN DIVIDE

Kara Pecknold

ABSTRACT// This paper reports on a case study that investigated

how a low-tech human-centered design process might more ade-

quately prepare a rural community for future design solutions.
During the study, activities were developed to help a designer
pursue a visual conversation when working with individuals who
do not share the same language or technology in order to discover
their needs, assets, beliefs and desires. By introducing these
adaptive tools in a development context at the early stages of a
design process, a designer is offered new insights. By collaborating
with the community on this project, the next stages of the process

can see improved focus in order to work toward the most appropri-

ate and sustainable outcomes.

KEYWORDS// Human-centered Design, Participatory, Co-design,
Social Innovation, Sustainable Development

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT// In January 2009, a toolkit
that included drawing utensils, a single-use camera and a set of
twenty-five aspiration cards, was sent to a group of ten women in
Rwanda in order to gather insights about how
they understand and interpret their personal
and community needs. The contents were placed
into a bag that was designed to act as both a
carrying case and desk to allow for the process
to occur during the rituals of daily life. By allow
ing the participants to be the researchers of their
own community, a designer can more accurately
assess how design solutions might be appropri
ately delivered in a cross-cultural context.

During my research, | initiated a brief exchange with Profes-

sor Ranjan from the National Institute of Design in India. I asked
him about his methodology of “village intervention with design
for sustainable living.” (Rajan, 2008) This approach seeks to
incubate the ideas within the village in order to progress forward
in any design solution. It also suggests that design plays a role

in viewing an entire system rather than just its individual parts,

which helps reduce misguided design interventions.

18 CURRENT

“DESIGN PLAYS A ROLE IN
VIEWING AN ENTIRE SYSTEM
RATHER THAN JUST ITS
INDIVIDUAL PARTS, WHICH
HELPS REDUCE MISGUIDED
DESIGN INTERVENTIONS.”

An example of an intervention occurred when a village-based
Internet kiosk was developed in an attempt to open up commu-
nication channels in India: “I saw that they had focused on the
technology. Battery backup, heat tolerance and dust resistant
casing and all the other front end and back end systems that should
make the system work. But it failed. Why? The focus seemed to
be on making a robust and low cost solution but I did not hear
what the village folks were supposed to do with the whole offering
and it seems to me that this may have been the key to the failure
of the whole effort: focus on technology and economy and
missing the user and their particular condition in the location”
(Ranjan, 2007).

Paul Polak, author of Out of Poverty: What Works When Tra-
ditional Approaches Fail, draws on his twenty-five years of
involvement in various developing nations to assess what is
needed for these types of programs to work. His principles of
design for the underserved provide a sensible gauge for a designer
who seeks to offer solutions to an unknown demographic. He
suggests that the poor customer should rule the design process
and that one needs to have “good conver-
sations, with your eyes open, with at least
twenty-five poor people before you start
designing” (Polak, 2008).

CONTENTS AND PROCESS // In light of
this understanding, my inquiry focused on
tools that could establish a visual conversa-
tion around needs and aspirations. Because
there was limited access to electricity
and no computers or Internet, low-tech options were utilized. A
notepad was included as a means of asking participants to draw
images of things they thought could be useful for improving
their village. A non-flash, single-use camera was repackaged
and hosted a list of statements, which prompted a participant to
take pictures as she interpreted the meaning of each phrase. The
statements ranged from a basic inquiry of where someone might
shop to how she might spend the equivalent of a day’s wage