Feature: Should Design inform Social Policy?

Does design have a role in implementing social policy and addressing political challenges? In an informal debate on "Design and Social Policy", the July meeting of AIGA Experience Design in London weighed up just how far designers should be engaged in the political practices of shaping society. Talking from the front bench were panellists: Ben Rogers, Associate Director/Head of the Democracy team at the ippr; Richard Eisermann, Director of Design and Innovation at the Design Council and James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University.

The meeting was adversarial in flavour, which rather reduced its value as a discussion. Here is an account of what might be of interest, given this reservation.

Rogers described how some social processes failed to put the people who are the subject of them at the heart of them. Designers are good at seeing things afresh, he suggested, but he concluded that designers are neither necessary nor sufficient to reform public life and they shouldn't think they are: 'they are not the saviours of public life'. His assumption that only designers do design was left unchallenged as the meeting rushed to show how design does affect processes. Work on ballot papers, particularly in the USA, was cited as an example of how design impacts directly on politics. This argument was then belittled by people who wanted to point out that there is more to participation than voting.

Unfortunately, participants did not abandon this type of point-scoring to look at whether and what kind of design supports the development of improved social processes and how that might be promoted. Eisermann got closest when he drew attention to the fact that linking design and politics was not a new idea: it was already actively embraced in Sweden pre-war. But he offered no analysis of that movement's fate. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the current practice of inviting designers to participate. At present, the mandate for designers to be involved was coming from the public rather than politicians, he said. But he warned that it should not be allowed to become 'management idea of the month' for it 'could be taken out of the hands of the designers and abused'.

Woudhuysen used the absurdity of arguments taken to excess to drive his points, which he acknowledged were libertarian and therefore unlikely to support the active design of aspects of society. This worked to divert the audience further from any creative discussion. His view was that designers should concentrate on being 'good designers not bad politicians'. 'I didn't detect members of the public asking for buttons on their TV to vote with,' he quipped.

Prototyping; exploring the user's journey; visual literacy and the high-volume low-impact nature of design solutions, allowing for failure with little consequence, all appeared briefly as benefits of involving designers. None were taken forward.

Surprisingly, given how many designers were present, everyone was able to leave with their prejudices intact and without the more usual feeling at these events, that some constructive work and some synthesis had taken place. Perhaps that was because this particular roomful had taken Woudhuysen's advice and kept their political identities for the evening. If designing a more consensual style of politics is ever on the agenda, these would not be the designers to recruit.

As a footnote, it is worth citing the text of the organiser's call for your information: 'From recycling and obesity to voting and citizenship, from education and healthcare to crime and punishment, initiatives are underway. In the US, the AIGA has lead the development of the Design for Democracy campaign, which is now extending its remit beyond re-designing the US voting system. In the UK, the Design Council established its RED unit to ‘challenge accepted thinking on economic and social issues through design innovation’. It worked with leading UK thinktank ippr on the ‘Touching the State’ project, which asked: Can design enhance the experience of state-citizen encounters?, and, most recently, RED director Hilary Cottam won the Design Museum’s Designer of the Year award for her team's work on the Kingsdale School project (see the AIGA Experience Design London pages).

Clearly, outside the room, plenty of creative thinking has been taking place.

Associated Link: Another view of the event: David Wilcox, PartnershipsOnline

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