{"id":15966,"date":"2014-11-03T05:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=15966"},"modified":"2015-02-17T13:28:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T20:28:32","slug":"end-user-design-undermines-ict4d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/end-user-design-undermines-ict4d\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u201cDesigning With the End User\u201d Undermines International Development Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of near-invisible end users<\/strong>, it\u2019s promising to see the beginnings of \u2018end-user recognition\u2019 in much of technology-for-development (ICT4D<\/a>)\u00a0emerging best practice. It looks like we\u2019ve made a big stride forward, but we\u2019re not where we need to be yet, despite making all the right noises. To a great extent, we\u2019re still saying one thing and doing another.<\/p>\n

Independence and self-reliance, i.e. people in the developing world solving their own problems, should be key development objectives<\/i> Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The international development sector, which includes the ICT4D community, is famously uncoordinated. That\u2019s no surprise to many of the people who work in it. You would hope that, at least if the wrong things were being done they\u2019d be being done in a coordinated way, but that\u2019s rarely the case. Haiti is a great case in point, where \u201ca confused aid effort<\/a>\u2018 has only added to the difficulties. You\u2019d be right to ask why so many people continue to live in tents nearly five years after the earthquake.<\/p>\n

Very recently, the Narrative Project\u2014which I blogged about here<\/a>\u2014included a call for \u201ca co-ordinated development sector.\u201d It also made the point that independence and self-reliance, i.e. people in the developing world solving their own problems, should be key development objectives. And that people need to believe they can make a difference. This is good to hear, but they\u2019re empty words if ‘best’ practice continues to undermine it.<\/p>\n

You could argue that designing with the user is a sensible approach\u2014it\u2019s certainly better than designing without them\u2014but is it taking us closer to an end-game of \u201cpeople in the developing world solving their own problems?\u201d It may if you\u2019re working with them to build a tool or platform which they, and other communities elsewhere, can then take and subsequently deploy on their own terms to solve whatever problem they see fit, in whatever way they decide, without the ‘solution’ provider needing to be involved.<\/p>\n

Local empowerment can only genuinely happen if it\u2019s local people helping local people.<\/i> Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To me, design with the user makes more sense to a local<\/em> solutions developer, who can simply jump on a bus to go and work with them. But it doesn\u2019t for the overseas solutions developer, for example the student group designing an ICT4D intervention as part of their design thinking course. Local empowerment can only genuinely happen if it\u2019s local people helping local people. So what we need to do is work towards a place where that can happen. Allowing the user to design<\/em> is that place.<\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is that far too many ICT4D projects are still initiated from the outside. When I initially launched FrontlineSMS<\/a> in 2005, the platform was squarely designed to allow local people to conceive, design and run their own projects. The only outside help they needed was for someone to provide something that allowed them to do that. It really isn\u2019t rocket science.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite its successes, it still seems to be a model, and an approach, in the minority.<\/p>\n

I worry that people who read, study and follow the \u201cdesign with the end user\u201d mantra might feel more than ever that they\u2019re doing the right thing, but they\u2019ll simply be reinforcing the outside-in, top down approach without realizing it. Design with the end user is a step in the right direction, but it\u2019s not the end of the journey, and we shouldn\u2019t kid ourselves that it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People who read, study and follow the \u201cdesign with the end user\u201d mantra might feel more than ever that they\u2019re doing the right thing, but they\u2019ll simply be reinforcing the outside-in, top down approach without realizing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":15971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[476,1491,1553,1554,1490,1529],"tags":[2247,1417,220,1398,729,1400,288,677,359,245],"class_list":["post-15966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-development-tags","category-metrics-and-evaluation","category-mobile","category-poverty-tags","category-technology","tag-article","tag-corporation","tag-design","tag-intdev","tag-banks","tag-metrics","tag-mobile","tag-opin","tag-tech","tag-values"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow \u201cDesigning With the End User\u201d Undermines International Development Best Practices - 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