I want to talk about 21st Century Design. So, what do I mean by that? I mean it's a different kind of design. It's not the traditional design where we make beautiful, wonderful objects and wonderful experiences. It's about thinking about design as *a way of thinking*, *a way of addressing the major problems of the world* because designers have a special way of addressing issues. We call it *Design Thinking* – it comes under many other different names.
But it's what designers have been doing for, well, since the beginning of designers. What is design as a way of thinking? Well, here's how I like to talk about it. First of all, well, it's *human-centered*. So, we always *focus upon the people*, and that's very important because it's the *only* discipline where the *major focus is about making things that are appropriate for people*. Second, we *solve the right problem*.
Third, we *recognize that everything is a system*. You can't solve one little piece, because everything is interconnected. So, you have to really look at the nature of the system. And, finally – and this is extremely important – we *don't rush* to a solution. We know that when we're dealing with human beings and societies and different cultures and political forces and economic factors that whatever we do is *probably not* going to be right.
So, what we do is we *try a simple, small intervention*. We see what the results are; then we modify it, and we continually experiment, do an intervention, learn from it, change what we're doing, and slowly we'll get bigger and bigger because each one allows us to do even more the next time, and we'll get better and better. Design is an interesting discipline.
They learn the techniques; they learn the problem-solving and problem-defining methods; they have a whole bunch of powerful tools. And then, because we don't know the details of healthcare or even housing, we have to bring in the experts; so, we have to have a multidisciplinary team where we work together with people from all types of skills. And the most important thing – this has to *come from the people*.
We can mentor. We can facilitate. We can bring in other resources. You have difficulty – individuals have *difficulty tackling the whole system* or tackling the *political issues*, but that's where *we* can come in and help. So, we call that *community-driven design*, which is a subset of *human-centered design*, which, as far as I am concerned, is really about *designing for humanity*. So, human-centered design is a subset of *humanity-driven design*, *humanity-centered design*, because we're trying to save
– well – the planet.