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What’s going on

The latest news and products from FLEX.

24 Nov 2017

User Centered Design for emergency sanitation

Our Creative Director Ronald Lewerissa joined the three-day ‘User-Centered Design for WaSH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene)’ convening at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. The participants came from every corner of the globe and had the opportunity to share their experiences and learn from each other’s methodologies.

Inadequate and unhygienic sanitation is a problem in many parts of the world. Many attempts to improve sanitation in areas without sewage fail. Not because of a lack of funding or inferior technology. They fail because the solutions don’t apply in the local context. For instance, open defecation is a problem, and the quality level of service and maintenance of toilets often results in severe hygiene issues. As this is related to human behavior, the workshop’s focus was to find better ways to develop solutions that lead to preferred behavior. We met with NGO’s, funding organizations and of course other designers and solution providers. The subject of the presentations and demonstrations was how to apply User-Centered Design in the development of better sanitation solutions.

Exciting insights came from iDE global. They demonstrated the effectiveness of proper research before actually starting to develop solutions. It offers a basis for real change:

When we told people that we planned to sell latrines, water filters, and handwashing devices to poor customers rather than just give them away, they didn’t believe it would work. But we’ve proven that it does work and that it works better than charity, because when people invest their own money, they’re more likely to embrace the change necessary to improve their lives.

Another example was presented by Joseph Kittingji from Sanergy in Kenia, which shows that preparation for User-Centered Design research is essential. There are the local practical issues like culture, habits, and language that you need to become familiar with. Another problem is the hierarchy between men and women that can make it difficult to have genuine conversations with the female part of the population.  He successfully implemented a new solution and overcame matters dealing with gender-specific needs, the lack of space in urban areas and the cost of maintenance.

Parmita Dalal from IDEO.org allowed us to take a look at the methodology IDEO is using. She talked about how they do their research and how co-creation with various types of stakeholders takes place at IDEO.

Ronald demonstrated our Design Game as a compelling and accessible method to involve various stakeholders (NGO’s, users, local entrepreneurs). We received very positive feedback because it turns out to be a great tool to analyze/research local situations and uncover the specific needs of users. It also involves the stakeholders in the development of ideas for solutions.

Additionally, we talked about the necessity of prototyping in every phase of development and that it should be considered a constant activity throughout the entire process. The eSOS system that we developed with UNESCO IHE is an example how prototypes represent the solution and how they change in the different phases of the development from a scale model to working experiments and more finalized solution. Each prototype can be used to get specific feedback from various user groups.

Focusing on the behavioral change, in many of the sessions a wide variety of ideas and methods were discussed. Inevitably some of the insights from the book Switch from Chip and Dan Heath were discussed, and we tried to apply them to sanitation as ultimately the objective is to make a lasting change in how people behave relating to sanitation.

Contact Ronald  to learn more

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