Welcome to Responsible Design. This framework includes a set of principles as well as methods we use to support those principles. It is, however, a work-in-progress, because something like responsible tech and design are moving targets. As circumstances, contexts and developments shift we have to constantly monitor if what we’re doing is still fitting for those changes.
Are you a designer? In that ****case, we want to share our work because we believe our approach and resources can be incorporated into designers’ daily work and be one impetus for more responsible technology.
Are you looking for a design team? In that case, you can explore the principles (and reasoning behind them), theories and mindsets by which Studio Llama strives to design. Maybe they are something you’d like incoorporated into your own projects.
Let us know what you think. We’d enjoy getting to know you and hear your thoughts over a cup of water, tea or coffee. We consider this to be a living document and are always open to feedback.
Content
How are we designing currently?
There isn’t just one way of designing. There isn’t even one clear definition of it. But one aspect seems relatively clear to us:
<aside> 🎯 Digital products are designed by focusing on users and their needs.
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That isn’t a bad thing. If applied correctly, it forces companies and organisations to focus on their users' needs instead of their own. This happens through a cycle of research, design work and validation, seeking direct input from potential users. But is it enough?
<aside> ⁉️ Despite the helpful focus of approaches like User-Centred Design (UCD), we have still witnessed the design of harmful products for users individually and societies globally.
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What is harmful about design & technology?
What are the issues related to design?
As a studio, we took the time to chat, tinker and think about what we felt was going wrong and how we might think to approach the problem. As a result, we identified three main issues with commonly-used approaches to digital design, like UCD, which helped us think about ways to address the issues we’ve been seeing - well, at least some of them.
Where does this leave us?
<aside> 🔦 We need to build and expand upon approaches that compliment or move beyond UCD to design more responsibly. This process requires new methods and processes.
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The design of technology has wide-ranging societal impacts. We use our criticisms to build on its foundations to workshop our framework for responsible design.
There are myriad alternate methods out there which we draw upon and incorporate. In addition, we workshop our own methods based on our fields of study and collective knowledge.
How did we get here?
Based on our conclusions above, our deep dive into researching design methods out there and combining our collective knowledge from design, psychology and anthropology, we have come up with our Studio Llama approach that aims to translate theories and possible methods into actual action. We hope to address some of the short comings that have been witnessed in the design world and “do good” (or at least better). As a studio, we continuously monitor new developments, remain open to inputs and stay connected. As a result, this approach will be updated as we go.
Our framework has three components:
<aside> Introduction & Deduction
That’s what you’re reading right now. 🙃
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<aside> 🚩 Principles
General approach for designing more responsibly.
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<aside> 🔧 Methods
Methods to carry the principles over into your daily design practice. They are mapped to the principles.
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Process & Framework