Abstract
When implementing design projects aimed at solving social issues across borders, it is essential to deeply understand the local people and culture. In particular, when enterprises in developed countries deploy services to address social issues in developing countries, the lack of understanding of the local context and biases can become a barrier to sustainable business development. In such a context, a human-centred design approach plays an important role in the process of designing as it facilitates an in-depth understanding of local people and culture. In the context of education, when students in a developed country develop sustainable services and businesses in order to take on social issues in a developing country, what components in the design process promote such an understanding of the local context? What types of approaches provide them with insights into the local people? Or, how do these insights inform their design processes and ideation? This paper reports the results of a study that investigated the influence of a human-centred design approach, employed in a module aimed at addressing social issues in Bangladesh by proposing sustainable service designs, for a particular group of Japanese undergraduate students. This study especially examined what components, typically involved in a human-centred design approach, influenced students' perspectives on the local context within the module, focusing on the four consideration frameworks: 1) Being aware of local social issues and market needs; 2) Co-creation of values in the local market; 3) Utilisation of local resources and capabilities and; 4) Building partnerships with diverse stakeholders.
Keywords
human-centred design; service design education; social problem solving; design for the base of the pyramid
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.508
Citation
Miyama, K., Inoue, S.,and Shirasaka, S.(2023) The role of human-centred design in promoting understanding of local contexts: a study of Japanese students addressing social issues in Bangladesh, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.508
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
fullpapers
Included in
The role of human-centred design in promoting understanding of local contexts: a study of Japanese students addressing social issues in Bangladesh
When implementing design projects aimed at solving social issues across borders, it is essential to deeply understand the local people and culture. In particular, when enterprises in developed countries deploy services to address social issues in developing countries, the lack of understanding of the local context and biases can become a barrier to sustainable business development. In such a context, a human-centred design approach plays an important role in the process of designing as it facilitates an in-depth understanding of local people and culture. In the context of education, when students in a developed country develop sustainable services and businesses in order to take on social issues in a developing country, what components in the design process promote such an understanding of the local context? What types of approaches provide them with insights into the local people? Or, how do these insights inform their design processes and ideation? This paper reports the results of a study that investigated the influence of a human-centred design approach, employed in a module aimed at addressing social issues in Bangladesh by proposing sustainable service designs, for a particular group of Japanese undergraduate students. This study especially examined what components, typically involved in a human-centred design approach, influenced students' perspectives on the local context within the module, focusing on the four consideration frameworks: 1) Being aware of local social issues and market needs; 2) Co-creation of values in the local market; 3) Utilisation of local resources and capabilities and; 4) Building partnerships with diverse stakeholders.