The Social Design Method Menu

The Social Design Method Menu

Lucy Kimbell and Joe Julier made an impressive design thinking based social innovation “manual” called the Social Design Method Menu” for the Young Foundation in 2011. 

This remarkable collection of different approaches to Designing Social Innovation, describes the challenges of design thinking within the framework of social innovation, and provides a series of suggestions to how to approach the issue. 

Lucy Kimbell says:

“People working in all sorts of contexts, as managers, activists, receptionists, or volunteers, are involved in creating new ways of doing things in the organisations they work in.

Because design is focused on the creation of new things (products, services, interactions, systems, environments…) to serve particular purposes, exploring the skills and knowledge of designers is a great way of beginning to address these changes. Against the backdrop of economic uncertainty, service providers and policy-makers as well as activists are all faced with the question of how to do more with less, and increase user satisfaction and improve outcomes at the same time.

Trying out a different approach provides space to think about complex issues outside the typical constraints of organisations” (article) 

“We believe the centre of gravity is now shifting. Before long, enterprises that do not seek positive social impact will start to look out of place”, Simon Willis, Young Foundation Chief Executive, says.