Dr Abi Hird, design innovation lead at the Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Network, discusses the importance of leveraging design principles when looking to achieve change and bring products and solutions to market
What is design? We use the term ‘design’ in a broad sense to encompass a mindset that encourages the consideration of systems beyond a specific product or solution. This approach gives innovations the best chance of succeeding in the real world.
Let’s explore examples of how design can be used to get the desired result.
Boosting inclusivity in design
At KTN, we are committed to boosting inclusivity. As such, we are often thinking about how to make sure that diverse audiences attend our events and participate in our programmes.
In the past, we have run manufacturing events attended by women making up 24% of the audience. Given that manufacturing is mainly comprised of men – 26% of the industry is female – it would be easy to think that we succeeded in running an inclusive event.
But when we took a design-led approach and looked deeper, we found that while 40% of academics who attended were women, 95% of attendees from technical organisations were men. Technical organisations have a 50:50 male-to-female ratio – so our event was not as inclusive as initial insights might suggest.
This goes to show the value in truly understanding a problem and asking exploratory questions to get to grips with the issue at hand. Only then can measures be adopted to succeed in what you want to achieve.
Keeping people safe
Another example of taking a design-led approach to solving a problem involves decisions about gritting roads in winter. Historically, in Scandinavia, it was assumed that clearing roads should be the priority.
However, when the data was explored, it was found that most accidents happen on pavements and underpasses, so local councils used this information to adjust their priorities and saw a dramatic drop off in accidents. Again, this goes to show the importance of understanding wider contexts to reveal insights that lead to improved decision-making.
Lessons to learn for the future
So, what can we learn from these examples? Certainly, a key barrier preventing innovations from reaching their potential is the push for answers too early on. More time should be spent on taking a bird’s-eye view – are we doing the right thing? What obstacles can we foresee down the line? How can we make sure that we comply with regulations? These are all important questions to ask at the start, rather than at the end, of a project.
And this approach must come from the top. Otherwise, folks handling delivery will be under pressure for quick solutions that are all too often sub-optimal.
Inclusive and diverse teams can help because different approaches and points of view can be considered. Diverse teams embed the mindset that not everyone’s experiences are the same and this naturally drives more exploratory design.
Leveraging design to drive innovations forward
We need to be able to develop products, technology, systems and solutions that “do the right thing” and don’t have unintended detrimental consequences.
Theoretically, design has the capacity to help with this but there is a need to move away from a small understanding of design and to think about using methods and techniques that are suited to the complexity of the problem at hand. We won’t solve society’s big issues using methods we’ve used for simple challenges in the past or the methods that got us into this situation in the first place.
Design needs to broaden its horizons and engage and borrow from other disciplines where handling complexity is integral to practice.
Innovate UK KTN’s Design Innovation Network will work with innovators, leveraging the potential of good design to drive products capable of addressing society’s pressing challenges. Innovation is held back by bad design, and we are on a mission to reverse this and use good design to drive innovations forward.
Dr Abi Hird
Design innovation lead
Innovate UK KTN
