To design for health means going beyond simple comfort and delight to address sustainability and health. Human-centered design, although effective in satisfying human needs, may not be sufficient for driving behavior change in these areas. Design for change, informed by behavioral science, becomes crucial. The design for health and sustainability process involves various design practices from industrial and graphic design to behavioral design, service design, strategic design, transition design, and design for social innovation. There must be intentional use of design in order to promote healthier behaviors, support organizational change, and empower communities for social transformation.
What is design? Is it something we do for delight? Yes, appealing cars or surprising buildings give us delight. Is design something we do for comfort and experience? Yes, good products and services enhance our experiences.
But is this landfill something that also was designed? It was. The difference is that not a single designer is causing this. Is this public health obesity epidemic design? It was. And again, not by a single designer. So how can we design not only for delight, comfort, and experience but also for sustainability and health?
One of the popular concepts in many fields of practice is human-centered design. Many believe that we can solve complex problems with human-centered design. This approach works to satisfy humans; however, designing for sustainability and health means changing behaviors and systems. Human-centered means designing for the way people behave, but what we really need is designing for changing sustainability and health behaviors.
Everything with design changes human behaviors and systems. Yet designers rarely designed intentionally for change. Design for change is an emergent practice. Behavioral science is informing the way with design products and systems. Some nudges are very effective to make people make decisions either unconsciously or irrationally.
The challenges of health and sustainability also work at larger scales such as organizational change and sociotechnical system change. At every level, there are different design practices. Design practices that change the behavior of artifacts, not people, are industrial design, graphic design, and experience design. For changing the behavior of humans: behavioral design. For changing the behavior of organizations: service design and strategic design. And for changing complex sociotechnical systems: transition design and design for social innovation.
While at smaller scales experts drive the design process, at larger scales design is participatory and collaborative. While at smaller scales design is short term, at larger scales design is longer term. While at smaller scales business value is central, at larger scales social value is central. While at smaller scales design problems are discrete, at larger scales design problems are wicked.
Yet, at all levels, designers can be intentional about change. For example, designing packaging to help people be healthier by changing human behaviors, designing electronic medical records that change organizational behavior and support physicians and patients, or designing platforms that empower communities to design for social change.
