If you could redesign anything, what would it be?

We asked our community what they would redesign if given the chance. From food packaging to healthcare services, read on to discover what designers around the world are eager to tweak.

As designers, we are always dreaming up ways to make things better — whether that be in terms of functionality, usability, connectivity or any other number of factors. We asked our community, from our Board of Directors to our Young Designers Circle, to share what they would redesign if given the chance.

FOOD PACKAGING

Lack of packaging standards have contributed to too many materials and misuse without consideration towards environmental impact, health hazards, over-packaging, recycling challenges, inefficiency in food storage, and food waste.

David Kusuma
WDO President
United States

CITIES

Most cities are not adequately adapted to urban realities, nor are they prepared for the future. Quality of life should be the main consideration for the design of cities, inclusive, with an increased focus on inclusivity and green spaces, as opposed to just industry.

Lilian González
Academic Coordinator, Anahuac University of Mexico
Mexico

THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR

In our current context of the climate crisis and loss of confidence in democracies, the relationship between governments, companies and citizens should be redefined. Governments can play a more proactive role in value creation and innovation, by co-defining missions that entangle private sector, academic sector and citizens. We need to redesign how we perceive the role of the public sector and citizens in value creation.

Pedro Sáez Martínez
Co-Founder, monnou studio
Spain

TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

Urban and interurban mobility needs to be designed with a focus on upgrading the integration of sustainable technologies and processes to reduce environmental impact. Of course we cannot forget other aspects such as infrastructure, efficiency, connectivity, safety — but thinking long-term, we need to prioritize our planet.

Luis Calabuig
CEO, Odosdesign
Spain

HEALTHCARE SERVICES

I would redesign healthcare services and products to reflect user-centred care. This is where the needs, preferences, and values of different stakeholders in the critical touch points of delivery of quality healthcare are honoured. For example, it would mean actively engaging patients in the decision-making process, and providing them with the information and support they need to make informed choices about their care.

Nyariara Njoroge
Facilitator Lean Experimentation Coach, The Nature Conservancy
Kenya

DESIGN ITSELF

To regenerate our living environment, our social relationships, when restoring ecosystems and the planet, design today must constitute a new noetic environment, which we must take care of. Design is the ‘craftsman’ of our ways of being in the world, of inhabiting the world, an agent of reclaiming meaning and our bodies, starting by accepting our radical biological materiality, but also passing through the human imagination towards a sort of design metamorphosis.

Anne Asensio
Vice-President of Design Experience, Dassault Systèmes
France

THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Circular design has not yet been fully explored. We need to define what key user behaviours are required for circular business models to work and to outline how design can enable these behaviours moving forwards.

Chi-Yi Chang
President, Taiwan Design Research Institute (TDRI)
Taiwan, Chinese Taipei

BATHROOMS

Thinking about how to offer solutions for aging populations in order to improve their quality of life, I would aim to redesign holistic bathroom space with a focus on accessibility and well-being.

Eray Sertac Ersayin
President, Industrial Designers Society of Turkey
Turkey

DEMOCRACY

Our recent geopolitical context has shown how fragile democracy is, and the current expansion of movements based on alternative facts could very well become a shifting force toward the end of democracy’s expansion. It therefore calls for a great effort in redesigning the foundations of the democratic movement, citizen’s engagement, through our education and communication tools and systems, throughout the world and in all cultures.

Bertrand Derome
WDO Managing Director
Canada

We want to hear from you! Share your redesign wish with us on social @worlddesignorg!