Consumer Matters A people-centred approach

Rama Gheerawo Deputy Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design

Royal College of Art

Design goes way beyond aesthetics...

… it can change business culture and all of our civil society

as well.

Bruce Nussbaum, BusinessWeek RCA Innovation Night, June 2007

IMPROVING LIFE

DESIGN HAS AN IMAGE PROBLEM

Design-led firms outperform the stock market measures by up to 200%

Source: UK Design Council

WHO IS DESIGN FOR?

DESIGN CENTRED

around PEOPLE

PEOPLE CENTRED DESIGN

INCLUSIVE DESIGN

UNIVERSAL DESIGN

DESIGN FOR ALL

CO-DESIGN

PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

PEOPLE CENTRED

DESIGN

SOCIALLY DRIVEN DESIGN

THE WORLD IS CHANGING

HOW WILL WE RESPOND?

Environmental change does not just affect the environment … it affects

people

There are babies born today who will live to be 100 …

… and those who will die before their parents

A quarter of Norwegians use over three prescriptions every day

80 % of family purchasing decisions are made by women

Source: Innovating with People – The Business of Inclusive Design, Norwegian Design Council

But … 83 % of the creative industry are men

Source: Innovating with People – The Business of Inclusive Design Norwegian Design Council

Only 13% of the American public believes that technology products are easy to use

Source: Philips Index (2004)

In the 10 newest EU member states, 1 in 4 people have some form of disability

10 % of the world’s population is aged 60 or over

Source: United Nations report: The World at Six Billion

6,915,827,105 people

According to the US Census Bureau projection 10.54am yesterday

691,582,711 older people

HOW WILL WE RESPOND?

WORKING WITH PEOPLE

SEE

ASK

INTERPRET

See how people live

Ask them what they actually do

Make interpretations

Evaluate ideas

Follow people around

Set people tasks

Experience their world

Ask people to record what they do

Capture emotions as well

Not just testing solutions … but helping to define problems

OUR APPROACH

1) Aim for the edges

Source: Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn Centre

Who are you excluding?

Socially Culturally

Economically Geographically

Financially Gender Ability Age

2) Statistics are just the start

3) See the ‘person’ … not the ‘user’

Photos: Aaron Fotheringham

Photo: Katrin Trautner

physically mentally culturally

socially spiritually emotionally

People differ ..

Because people are experts in their own lives …

… you are NOT an expert in their life

… you are an expert in other things

4) The rule of one

If one designer sees one interesting thing from one person…

… that can be enough to get started.

ORGANISATIONS FROM AROUND

THE WORLD

PROJECTS WITH INDUSTRY

Working with business

110 people-centred design projects

80 companies

We matchfund

Getting closer to consumer

IT IS ABOUT WIDENING

PERSPECTIVES

Why have one perspective …

… when you can have many

OUT OF THE BOX Designers: Clara Gaggero and Adrian Westaway