Community-Based Design Thinking: A Moment or a Movement?
Abstract
This paper assesses the value and limitations of a two-year community-engaged design thinking initiative across one county in the southeast United States. Initiative goals were to foster the design of more inclusive and holistic public health community-based services with underserved communities, institutionalize and socialize community-based design within a public health framework, and build organizational and individual capacities. Findings indicate the acquired design thinking processes transformed mental models, fostered new relationships, and built skills. Findings surfaced challenges related to grant and time constraints as well as organizational differences. Recommendations for service design practitioners and researchers seeking equity-centered, community-first practices are noted, including a commitment to emergent codesign practices, frequent and iterative prototyping, intentional cross-learning, and long-term transitionary resourcing and oversight.
Keywords
design thinking; community engagement; place-based; public health
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3384/ecp203051
Citation
Lake, D., Motley, P., Flannery, K., Thurnes, T.,and Mangili, A.(2023) Community-Based Design Thinking: A Moment or a Movement?, in Carla Cipolla, Claudia Mont’Alvão, Larissa Farias, Manuela Quaresma (eds.), ServDes 2023: Entanglements & Flows Conference, Service Encounters and Meanings, 11-14th July 2023, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. https://doi.org/10.3384/ecp203051
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Community-Based Design Thinking: A Moment or a Movement?
This paper assesses the value and limitations of a two-year community-engaged design thinking initiative across one county in the southeast United States. Initiative goals were to foster the design of more inclusive and holistic public health community-based services with underserved communities, institutionalize and socialize community-based design within a public health framework, and build organizational and individual capacities. Findings indicate the acquired design thinking processes transformed mental models, fostered new relationships, and built skills. Findings surfaced challenges related to grant and time constraints as well as organizational differences. Recommendations for service design practitioners and researchers seeking equity-centered, community-first practices are noted, including a commitment to emergent codesign practices, frequent and iterative prototyping, intentional cross-learning, and long-term transitionary resourcing and oversight.