Designing More Effectively for Social Impact | Austin

About this class

Standard UX design practices are well-suited for well-structured problems, but fall short for considering the broader social implications of solutions to well-structured problems and for attempting to address ill-structured or so-called “wicked societal problems” (e.g., our broken healthcare system, homelessness, addiction to social media or electronic devices).

Richard Anderson will review many of the common characteristics of well-structured, ill-structured, and wicked problems, and, with the workshop attendees, will discuss their implications.

Then, by questioning everything about the standard design process for well-structured problems, Richard will identify common process shortcomings, present examples of projects that ignored such shortcomings as well as of projects that didn’t, and provide attendees with the opportunity to experience ways of how to address such shortcomings.

Attendees will emerge better able to target social impact intentionally and better able to design for achieving that intentional social impact.

Takeaways

• Understanding of the differences between and implications of the differences between well-structured, ill-structured, and wicked problems
• Understanding of how standard design practices often fall short of intentionally addressing social impact
• Understanding of what is needed to design more effectively for social impact