SOCIAL DESIGN TOOLKIT
by Kelly Spain | Anny Yadav | Maricarmen Sierra
How can social design help create a more human-centered city?
How can we engage the community to help redesign itself?
We believe design thinking principles can be applied to advance Social Design. This toolkit puts together successful examples of frameworks, methods, templates to inspire you to coordinate a collaborative design process. It is meant to help you get real. It will help hone in on your intent and guide you through the steps of Participatory Community Design process. You'll learn to collect insights from the community and translate their voices into actionable ideas to revitalize an urban area and increase resilience. You will see several examples of where we've used the social design toolkit in projects for the City of San Francisco.
Presenting our design solution to the Mayor Ed Lee, February 2012
SOCIAL DESIGN FOR CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO
What: Hackathon to innovate the Taxi System in the City of San Francisco
Role: design strategist + facilitator
The city of San Francisco provided the challenges and access to interesting data. 24 hours of intensive fun while inventing design-driven technology solutions to real world problems. The objective is to collaborate between creative thinkers to find solutions where the intersection of technology, empathy and economics can impact the city for good.
Today, we have instant access to Uber or Lyft, but a few years ago it was almost impossible to get a cab in the street. This was the 2012 challenge: “50% of the cabs in SF sit empty. They cluster in key areas of the city, even though they’re needed in other places. Central dispatch hasn’t worked nor has the current "free market" approach. How can we take advantage of today's technology and create a solution to distribute taxis throughout the city, where and when they are needed, so everyone benefits?”
During a design charette we got:
Access to non-public data from real users
Access to smart mentors, designers and engineers eager to help teams
An opportunity to invent a working, technology-based solution with a global market
A community of like-minded, talented people eager to collaborate on a workable solution
A very cool design studio setting equipped with large whiteboards, displays (CCA)
Cash prizes and a chance to change SF for the better
Results: we created Trust Box, a subscription based service to have a secure communication with the drivers, ensuring that both will get meet on time at the set location. Mayor Ed Lee was present during our design process and was very interested in hearing about the Central Market Research to bring social design to Urban Revitalization.
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Talking with Mayor Ed Lee and Andrew Sun about our urban revitalization project for Central Market.
Are you thinking, "why so many post-it's?, what is actually happening in those walls, what is a design charette"? These are some methods and frameworks that will help you learn more about rapid prototyping, human centered design, business modeling and presentation skills.
- Ideation and concept development: Human Center Design Toolkit by IDEO
- Business Models and User Research: Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank
- Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder
- Presentation and storytelling tools: Resonate by Nancy Duarte
SOCIAL DESIGN FOR CENTRAL MARKET SF
What: The Creative Currency hackathon is an initiative bringing together leading developers and designers with national experts in social finance, local currencies, crowdfunding, sharing platforms, and other leaders of the new economy to envision, prototype, and deploy innovative solutions that reimagine our systems of exchange from the ground up.
In 2011, I participated in the Creative Currencies Hackathon as a resident ethnographer and shared my semester long research on urban revitalization for the Central Market District in SF.
Process: I conducted in depth ethnographic research, +35 one on one interviews with homeless population, local neighbors and business owners, and key experts and thought leaders, including Mayor Ed Lee.
Insights: We distilled patterns of needs and behavior into Personas, and constructed appropriate messaging, sustainability metrics and a social marketing campaigns to engage with the various community needs.
Keywords: ethnography, market insights, urban revitalization, social marketing, social design, hackathon for good
Creative Currency is an initiative bringing together leading developers and designers with national experts in social finance, local currencies, crowdfunding, sharing platforms, and other leaders of the new economy to envision, prototype, and deploy innovative solutions that reimagine our systems of exchange from the ground up.
Focusing on San Francisco’s Mid-Market District, the initiative will answer pressing questions, such as:
How can financial data empower low-income residents? How can local currencies support local businesses and community organizations? How can sharing platforms be tailored to fit the needs of under-served communities? How can tools like crowdfunding and microcredit be put to work for social service organizations and individuals alike?
Creative Currency is an initiative of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Hub Bay Area, The San Francisco Mayor's Office of Civic Innovation, and American Express.