Common Stages
Seven common stages in the social design process have been identified as follows.
1. Scope/Diagnose
This is where the designer orientates themselves to consider:
- The intervention environment
- What opportunities exist
- The risks involved
- Identifying unresolved needs
- Key organisations and experts
- Key stakeholders
- Broad issues, challenges and questions to be addressed
2. Research/Discover
- Access relevant individual and institutional knowledge to understand the issues and the context
- Identify and understand experiences and needs
- Understand shortcomings of current provision
- Investigate opportunities for increased benefits
- Work with users and stakeholders to understand their lives
- Map actions and interactions - people, organisations, products and services
- Understand social and service networks
- Iterative reviews (desk/web based research)
- Review existing provisions, the structure of the organisations that deliver them, how they are delivered and how their performance is evaluated
- Identify the multiple ‘design drivers’ and how they inter-relate
- Start to understand what a successful intervention might look like
- Identify what performance indicators might be appropriate to measure the performance of the intervention
3. Focus/Co-define
This is working towards the co-creation of a design brief - a process of ‘sensemaking’ translating research findings into a common understanding of the issues and the context.
- Review and analyse the findings of the research and discovery stage
- Align multi-stakeholder objectives and requirements (design drivers)
- Re-define multi-stakeholder objectives and requirements as clearly articulated design questions/problems
- Mediate conflicts between multi-stakeholder priorities (manage and resolve)
- Define design priorities according to context and opportunity
- Define design objectives (performance indicators) and how they will be measured
- Co-design practices – stakeholder workshops that allow people to respond to emerging briefs to propose their own solutions/concepts
4. Create and Develop
Product or service concepts are realised in response to a brief.
- Models and prototypes are created (product)
- Stories/scenarios and mock-ups are created (service)
- Test with users and stakeholders
- Concepts are challenged and changed (refined and developed)
- Iterative process to hone proposals into workable propositions
- Identify barriers and mediate conflicts according to the context and agreed design objectives
- This iterative refinement through stakeholder feedback is key to providing usable, quality products and services that maximise stakeholder (social) value
- The aim is to refine and realise prototypes that are desirable, viable and feasible whilst also considering the triple bottom line factors
Outputs of create/develop phase
Service: Detailed service specification, touch point proposals and prototypes
Product: Detailed product specification, design, production proposals and prototypes
Detailed proposals should consider the following (final) stages:
- Delivery
- How success will be measured
- Scale, legacy and transformation
5. Deliver
Review the final proposal:
- How will this social innovation be delivered
- What mode will be used to deliver it to the end-user?
- Who will manufacture and distribute it?
- How much will it cost?
- How will you market and sell it?
- How have you considered legal and financing issues?
6. Measure
Being able to measure performance against your agreed indicators is essential to understanding the impact and effectiveness of your design.
- Supports ongoing improvement
- Tests efficacy of proposals prior to scaling and mainstreaming - perhaps in other contexts
7. Scale, legacy and transformation
Social design seeks to maximise social and environmental benefit over time. Therefore, it is imperative to consider the long-term impact of proposals and the maintenance and servicing they may require over time.