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Tim Brown urges designers to think big — Transcript

by TED · 2,523 words · 346 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:12I'd like to talk a little bit this morning
0:14about what happens if we move from design
0:17to design thinking.
0:20Now this rather old photo up there
0:22is actually the first project I was ever hired to do,
0:25something like 25 years ago.
0:27It's a woodworking machine, or at least a piece of one,
0:29and my task was to
0:31make this thing a little bit more modern,
0:33a little bit easier to use.
0:35I thought, at the time, I did a pretty good job.
0:38Unfortunately, not very long afterwards
0:40the company went out of business.
0:43This is the second project that I did. It's a fax machine.
0:46I put an attractive shell around some new technology.
0:49Again, 18 months later,
0:51the product was obsolete.
0:53And now, of course, the whole technology is obsolete.
0:58Now, I'm a fairly slow learner,
1:00but eventually it occurred to me that
1:02maybe what passed for design
1:04wasn't all that important --
1:06making things more attractive,
1:08making them a bit easier to use,
1:10making them more marketable.
1:13By focusing on a design,
1:15maybe just a single product,
1:17I was being incremental
1:19and not having much of an impact.
1:23But I think this small view of design
1:25is a relatively recent phenomenon,
1:27and in fact really emerged
1:29in the latter half of the 20th century
1:31as design became a tool of consumerism.
1:35So when we talk about design today,
1:37and particularly when we read about it in the popular press,
1:40we're often talking about products like these.
1:42Amusing? Yes. Desirable? Maybe.
1:45Important? Not so very.
1:48But this wasn't always the way.
1:50And I'd like to suggest that if we take
1:52a different view of design,
1:54and focus less on the object
1:57and more on design thinking as an approach,
2:00that we actually might see the result in a bigger impact.
2:05Now this gentleman, Isambard Kingdom Brunel,
2:07designed many great things in his career in the 19th century,
2:11including the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol
2:15and the Thames tunnel at Rotherhithe.
2:17Both great designs and actually very innovative too.
2:22His greatest creation
2:25runs actually right through here in Oxford.
2:27It's called the Great Western Railway.
2:30And as a kid I grew up very close to here,
2:33and one of my favorite things to do
2:35was to cycle along by the side of the railway
2:38waiting for the great big express trains to roar past.
2:41You can see it represented here in J.M.W. Turner's painting,
2:43"Rain, Steam and Speed".
2:46Now, what Brunel said that he wanted to achieve for his passengers
2:50was the experience of floating across the countryside.
2:55Now, this was back in the 19th century.
2:57And to do that meant creating the flattest gradients
2:59that had ever yet been made,
3:01which meant building long viaducts across river valleys --
3:04this is actually the viaduct across the Thames at Maidenhead --
3:08and long tunnels such as the one at Box, in Wiltshire.
3:14But he didn't stop there. He didn't stop
3:16with just trying to design the best railway journey.
3:19He imagined an integrated transportation system
3:23in which it would be possible for a passenger to embark
3:26on a train in London
3:29and disembark from a ship in New York.
3:32One journey from London to New York.
3:36This is the S.S. Great Western that he built
3:38to take care of the second half of that journey.
3:42Now, Brunel was working 100 years before
3:44the emergence of the design profession,
3:47but I think he was using design thinking
3:50to solve problems and to create world-changing innovations.
3:55Now, design thinking begins with what Roger Martin,
3:57the business school professor at the University of Toronto,
4:00calls integrative thinking.
4:02And that's the ability to exploit opposing ideas
4:05and opposing constraints
4:07to create new solutions.
4:09In the case of design, that means
4:12balancing desirability, what humans need,
4:16with technical feasibility,
4:18and economic viability.
4:21With innovations like the Great Western,
4:23we can stretch that balance to the absolute limit.
4:27So somehow, we went from this to this.
4:34Systems thinkers who were reinventing the world,
4:37to a priesthood of folks in black turtlenecks and designer glasses
4:42working on small things.
4:44As our industrial society matured,
4:48so design became a profession
4:50and it focused on an ever smaller canvas
4:53until it came to stand for aesthetics,
4:55image and fashion.
4:57Now I'm not trying to throw stones here.
5:00I'm a fully paid-up member of that priesthood,
5:02and somewhere in here I have my designer glasses.
5:04There we go.
5:07But I do think that perhaps design
5:09is getting big again.
5:11And that's happening through
5:14the application of design thinking
5:16to new kinds of problems --
5:18to global warming, to education,
5:20healthcare, security, clean water, whatever.
5:24And as we see this reemergence of design thinking
5:27and we see it beginning to tackle new kinds of problems,
5:30there are some basic ideas that I think we can observe that are useful.
5:33And I'd like to talk about some of those
5:35just for the next few minutes.
5:37The first of those is that design is
5:39human-centered.
5:42It may integrate technology and economics,
5:44but it starts with what humans need, or might need.
5:48What makes life easier, more enjoyable?
5:50What makes technology useful and usable?
5:54But that is more than simply good ergonomics,
5:57putting the buttons in the right place.
6:00It's often about understanding culture and context
6:03before we even know where to start to have ideas.
6:06So when a team was working on a new vision screening program in India,
6:10they wanted to understand what the aspirations
6:12and motivations were of these school children
6:15to understand how they might play a role
6:17in screening their parents.
6:22Conversion Sound has developed a high quality,
6:24ultra-low-cost digital hearing aid
6:27for the developing world.
6:29Now, in the West we rely on highly trained technicians
6:33to fit these hearing aids.
6:35In places like India, those technicians simply don't exist.
6:39So it took a team working in India
6:41with patients and community health workers
6:43to understand how a PDA
6:45and an application on a PDA
6:47might replace those technicians
6:49in a fitting and diagnostic service.
6:52Instead of starting with technology,
6:54the team started with people and culture.
6:57So if human need is the place to start,
7:00then design thinking rapidly moves on to
7:02learning by making.
7:04Instead of thinking about what to build,
7:07building in order to think.
7:10Now, prototypes speed up the process of innovation,
7:13because it is only when we put our ideas out into the world
7:16that we really start to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
7:19And the faster we do that,
7:21the faster our ideas evolve.
7:24Now, much has been said and written about
7:26the Aravind Eye Institute in Madurai, India.
7:29They do an incredible job of serving very poor patients
7:33by taking the revenues from those who can afford to pay
7:35to cross-subsidize those who cannot.
7:39Now, they are very efficient,
7:42but they are also very innovative.
7:45When I visited them a few years ago,
7:48what really impressed me was their willingness
7:50to prototype their ideas very early.
7:52This is the manufacturing facility
7:54for one of their biggest cost breakthroughs.
7:56They make their own intraocular lenses.
7:59These are the lenses that replace those
8:01that are damaged by cataracts.
8:03And I think it's partly their prototyping mentality
8:07that really allowed them to achieve the breakthrough.
8:09Because they brought the cost down
8:11from $200 a pair,
8:12down to just $4 a pair.
8:17Partly they did this by instead of building
8:19a fancy new factory,
8:21they used the basement of one of their hospitals.
8:25And instead of installing the large-scale machines
8:28used by western producers,
8:30they used low-cost CAD/CAM prototyping technology.
8:34They are now the biggest manufacturer of these lenses in the developing world
8:38and have recently moved into a custom factory.
8:42So if human need is the place to start,
8:44and prototyping, a vehicle for progress,
8:46then there are also some questions to ask about the destination.
8:50Instead of seeing its primary objective as consumption,
8:55design thinking is beginning to explore the potential of participation --
8:58the shift from a passive relationship
9:01between consumer and producer
9:03to the active engagement of everyone
9:05in experiences that are meaningful,
9:07productive and profitable.
9:11So I'd like to take the idea that Rory Sutherland talked about,
9:14this notion that intangible things are worth perhaps more than physical things,
9:17and take that a little bit further and say that
9:19I think the design of participatory systems,
9:22in which many more forms of value
9:25beyond simply cash
9:27are both created and measured,
9:30is going to be the major theme, not only for design,
9:33but also for our economy as we go forward.
9:37So William Beveridge, when he wrote the first of his famous reports in 1942,
9:41created what became Britain's welfare state
9:45in which he hoped that every citizen
9:48would be an active participant
9:50in their own social well-being.
9:52By the time he wrote his third report,
9:55he confessed that he had failed
9:57and instead had created a society of welfare consumers.
10:03Hilary Cottam, Charlie Leadbeater,
10:05and Hugo Manassei of Participle
10:07have taken this idea of participation,
10:10and in their manifesto entitled Beveridge 4.0,
10:13they are suggesting a framework
10:15for reinventing the welfare state.
10:18So in one of their projects called Southwark Circle,
10:20they worked with residents in Southwark, South London
10:23and a small team of designers
10:25to develop a new membership organization
10:29to help the elderly with household tasks.
10:32Designs were refined and developed
10:34with 150 older people and their families
10:37before the service was launched earlier this year.
10:42We can take this idea of participation
10:46perhaps to its logical conclusion
10:48and say that design may have its greatest impact
10:50when it's taken out of the hands of designers
10:53and put into the hands of everyone.
10:56Nurses and practitioners at U.S. healthcare system
10:59Kaiser Permanente
11:01study the topic of improving the patient experience,
11:06and particularly focused on the way that they exchange knowledge
11:11and change shift.
11:14Through a program of observational research,
11:16brainstorming new solutions and rapid prototyping,
11:19they've developed a completely new way to change shift.
11:22They went from retreating to the nurse's station
11:26to discuss the various states and needs of patients,
11:28to developing a system that happened on the ward
11:31in front of patients, using a simple software tool.
11:34By doing this they brought the time that they were away from patients
11:36down from 40 minutes to 12 minutes, on average.
11:40They increased patient confidence and nurse happiness.
11:44When you multiply that by all the nurses
11:46in all the wards in 40 hospitals in the system,
11:49it resulted, actually, in a pretty big impact.
11:51And this is just one of thousands
11:53of opportunities in healthcare alone.
11:59So these are just some of the kind of basic ideas
12:02around design thinking
12:04and some of the new kinds of projects
12:06that they're being applied to.
12:09But I'd like to go back to Brunel here,
12:11and suggest a connection that might explain why this is happening now,
12:15and maybe why design thinking is a useful tool.
12:20And that connection is change.
12:23In times of change we need
12:25new alternatives, new ideas.
12:29Now, Brunel worked at the height of the Industrial Revolution,
12:31when all of life and our economy
12:33was being reinvented.
12:35Now the industrial systems of Brunel's time have run their course,
12:39and indeed they are part of the problem today.
12:41But, again, we are in the midst of massive change.
12:45And that change is forcing us to question
12:48quite fundamental aspects of our society --
12:50how we keep ourselves healthy, how we govern ourselves,
12:53how we educate ourselves, how we keep ourselves secure.
12:57And in these times of change, we need these new choices
13:00because our existing solutions are simply becoming obsolete.
13:05So why design thinking?
13:07Because it gives us a new way of tackling problems.
13:10Instead of defaulting to our normal convergent approach
13:15where we make the best choice out of available alternatives,
13:19it encourages us to take a divergent approach,
13:22to explore new alternatives, new solutions,
13:24new ideas that have not existed before.
13:28But before we go through that process of divergence,
13:30there is actually quite an important first step.
13:33And that is, what is the question that we're trying to answer?
13:36What's the design brief?
13:38Now Brunel may have asked a question like this,
13:40"How do I take a train from London to New York?"
13:44But what are the kinds of questions that we might ask today?
13:48So these are some that we've been asked to think about recently.
13:54And one in particular, is one that we're working on with the Acumen Fund,
13:57in a project that's been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
14:01How might we improve access to safe drinking water
14:04for the world's poorest people,
14:06and at the same time stimulate innovation
14:08amongst local water providers?
14:12So instead of having a bunch of American designers
14:14come up with new ideas that may or may not have been appropriate,
14:17we took a sort of more open, collaborative and participative approach.
14:21We teamed designers and investment experts up with
14:2411 water organizations across India.
14:27And through workshops they developed
14:29innovative new products, services, and business models.
14:32We hosted a competition
14:34and then funded five of those organizations
14:36to develop their ideas.
14:38So they developed and iterated these ideas.
14:40And then IDEO and Acumen spent several weeks working with them
14:43to help design new social marketing campaigns,
14:48community outreach strategies, business models,
14:51new water vessels for storing water
14:53and carts for delivering water.
14:56Some of those ideas are just getting launched into the market.
14:58And the same process is just getting underway
15:00with NGOs in East Africa.
15:03So for me, this project shows
15:06kind of how far we can go from
15:08some of those sort of small things
15:10that I was working on
15:12at the beginning of my career.
15:14That by focusing on the needs of humans
15:18and by using prototypes
15:20to move ideas along quickly,
15:22by getting the process out of the hands of designers,
15:25and by getting the active participation of the community,
15:28we can tackle bigger and more interesting questions.
15:31And just like Brunel, by focusing on systems,
15:34we can have a bigger impact.
15:37So that's one thing that we've been working on.
15:40I'm actually really quite interested, and perhaps more interested
15:43to know what this community thinks we could work on.
15:47What kinds of questions do we think
15:50design thinking could be used to tackle?
15:53And if you've got any ideas
15:55then feel free, you can post them to Twitter.
15:57There is a hash tag there that you can use, #CBDQ.
16:00And the list looked something like this a little while ago.
16:03And of course you can search to find the questions that you're interested in
16:07by using the same hash code.
16:09So I'd like to believe that design thinking
16:13actually can make a difference,
16:15that it can help create new ideas
16:17and new innovations,
16:19beyond the latest High Street products.
16:21To do that I think we have to take a more expansive view of design,
16:25more like Brunel, less a domain of a professional priesthood.
16:31And the first step is to start asking the right questions.
16:34Thank you very much.
16:36(Applause)

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