Can human-centered design create the big changes we need?
A note from a reformed former donor.
IDEO.org’s Amplify program was designed to test new approaches to international development, but it engaged some familiar faces in the process. The funding for the program was provided by DFID and The Rockefeller Foundation, two behemoth donors of the development sector. I was no stranger to this world, having spent the last eight years working for USAID in countries around the world.
I joined Amplify intrigued by the program’s ambitious intentions and craving a change in the way work was done in the development sector. I was excited about testing an inclusive procurement process that afforded smaller and community-based organizations the opportunity to submit ideas alongside their larger counterparts; to dispense flexible grants that allowed selected organizations to see if these ideas held promise; and to work alongside a cadre of designers who would guide these grantees to develop solutions that were informed by the desires — not just the needs — of people. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of such a program?
When I joined IDEO.org as the Amplify Program Director, I didn’t know much about human-centered design. I liked the philosophy, but couldn’t visualize what design looked like in practice nor what could it do. I also had big questions. How could design address global challenges? What was the impact of design and how could you measure it? How exactly was design human-centered?
I’d heard these questions echoed by quite a few donors in the international development sector. Without a doubt however, the most common question I got from went something like this: can bespoke solutions created through human-centered design scale sustainably to reach the billions of people necessary to achieve the SDGs?
The simple answer to the question is no…but maybe not for the reasons you’d assume. It’s not because human-centered solutions are inherently unscalable or unsustainable in a particular way; rather, it’s because there is not one solution or way of doing things that is going to change the world in the big, lasting ways that we need.
With two years leading Amplify, I’d like to share a bit of what I’ve learned with funders who want to support more human-centered programming but don’t know how or what to expect.
Focus
Human-centered design has been used by multinational corporations to design and sell products all around the world, so it’s clear the approach can create scalable solutions. However, it’s also true that most — if not all — of those solutions started small so they could focus their efforts on making something excellent. Before you know what kind of solution will work for the masses, you first need to figure out what works well for the few.
I used to be one of those development practitioners who expended a great deal of effort planning large programs. Yes, I spoke with a lot of people and did my research before (proverbially) putting pen to paper. But I now realize that I didn’t really understand what it looked like to create solutions that were truly informed by people.
Amplify only issued modest grants so our portfolio of 46 organizations could devote all of their energy toward crafting small but effective solutions that were informed by what people actually wanted. This required them to do more than just talk and conduct research; part of the expectation of Amplify was that our partners would share early versions their solutions to determine their effectiveness and so people could let them know early on whether their ideas held promise. More often than not — actually, almost always — our partners changed their projects based on the feedback they received and explored options they hadn’t originally considered. Devoting relatively small amounts of funding to solicit such feedback provided our grantees with a foundation with which to develop better informed solutions.
“I think the part of this project that was most unique was the part that allowed us to fail fast. Those words have always been jargon to us before this but in this case, we were absolutely wrong in our initial proposal and instead of quitting or proceeding with a strategy we realized was not right, we were given the skills, support, funding and motivation to push through and find a better solution.” Shamila Nahar and Tam Fetters, Ipas, Amplify Challenge 8
Flexibility
Amplify was also purposefully designed to give our partners the flexibility to try different things and we made it easy for them to do so.
Firstly, we expected some things wouldn’t work out so, when things didn’t go as planned, rather than chastise, we congratulated our partners for being brave enough to try new things. When plans needed to change because partners realized their original ideas weren’t going to work as they’d anticipated, we made it easy for them to pivot. We didn’t have reporting templates: we only asked our partners to share updates that felt relevant and, based on what they shared, we hopped on calls to talk through the details and the challenges they’d encountered.
Pivots in the development of solutions not only became natural but welcomed; user needs and ultimately the success of a solution remained priority.
Why was this important? Because no idea is perfect but, through iteration, they can be refined into effective, desired solutions. Since Amplify solutions were determined by the expressed wants and needs of people, it led to organic uptake among communities, the kind that is more likely to be sustained over the long term.
In addition, given the complex environments in which we work, projects were very likely to be disrupted by unexpected barriers. Offering Amplify partners the flexibility to navigate these complexities reduced the risk that their solutions would be derailed.
“Amplify was so flexible it allowed our project to become a living project that could adapt to changing work environments.” Paul Ssenteza, SignHealth Uganda, Amplify Challenge 7
Time
But it took a bit of time to get to these results, which was my third takeaway.
During my first few weeks at IDEO.org, I was confounded how often my colleagues would talk about how a particular prototype would make someone feel. It took me a while to understand what they were trying to do: given that more people are swayed by emotion than they are by data, they were designing solutions that triggered an emotional reaction in order to inspire action.
Figuring out what those triggers are takes time. Amplify’s most successful partners grew their solutions slowly, starting small and persistently iterating on their ideas so they evolved to meet the differing wants of different communities who came into contact with them. It often took our partners about a year (if not longer) to develop minimum viable versions of their solutions. So, time was essential.
“When we set out, we had grand ambitions. We’d hoped to reach a lot more people [but] we realized to truly understand our population, a lot more formative research & iteration was needed. We decided to scale the program down to ten male leaders only (focusing on depth). We also spent energy institutionalizing the project. Getting people on board was a longer process than planned.” Sareda Hassan, Somali Gender Justice, Amplify Challenge 8
The results of such patient exploration speak for themselves: at the start of Amplify, we estimated reaching 200K through the solutions we supported; however, we ended up reaching over 1.8 Million and that number continues to rise. These results are just the tip of the iceberg because ⅔ of our partners have secured follow-on funding to carry forward the solutions developed under Amplify. Which means their solutions will only keep getting better as will their results.
Where do we go from here
After nearly six years, the Amplify program will come to an end this June. We have graduated 46 grantees whose solutions have touched more than two million people.
When I worked for a donor organization, I thought a program like Amplify would be too difficult to implement. While affording our Amplify partners this kind of focus, flexibility, and time was not easy to do, the program has proven to me that the administrative burden of thoughtfully engaging organizations and people to develop human-centered solutions is worth the investment in time (and sometimes tears) for achieving results to very complex challenges.
I’ll leave you with one final perspective. I know from personal experience that donors in the international development sector are already exploring how to work in this way and have been doing so for quite some time. We’re only at the cusp of understanding the true potential of design in the social sector so I hope more donors like DFID keep investing in similarly ambitious programs that try to elevate the quality, depth, and breadth of this work.
I also hope that, as an industry, we question how we might remove the barriers that keep human-centered programming from being the norm.
Because, in my humble opinion, that’s how we’ll achieve the SDGs.
This blog is part of a series to capture lessons learned from Amplify, a program funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). To read the other blogs in this series and learn the perspectives of our DFID partners, please click here.
If you’d like to learn more about the work of our Amplify partners, click here.
