Social Design in a Developing Country

Abstract

“Social Design” was the default mode of design in the pre-industrial era. All design effort was by the people and for the people. It rarely was monopolized by individuals or special interests and was never protected. Objects of pleasure or mere curiosity were rare. Many of these traits still persist in developing countries where participatory approaches flourish and the purpose of design is often less to do with material comfort and equally to do with convenience of systems involving the public good. This paper explores how Social Design exists even in such an environment, taking examples from service design, non-profit design, and ethically conscious design from a developing country like India to illustrate the point.