Designing for a not so flat world

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 Designing for a Not So Flat World
Uday Dandavate,
April 9th, 2007

1.1 Globalization
Discussions about globalization, especially the human and cultural issues,
have polarized the world into pro- and anti-globalization camps. Vandana
Siva, a leading environmentalist, suggests a new world view of globalization
based on abundance and sharing, diversity and decentralization, and respect
and dignity for all beings. This is where designers have the opportunity to
play evangelists in the everyday lives of people living in different parts of
the global economy.

Due to the advent of information-revolution and ease of travel, people are

feeling the effects of globalization in every sphere of their lives.
Globalization is changing the way people think and what they desire. It is
leading them towards a drastic break from their erstwhile ways of living.
Therefore, it is important to understand the extent to which people are
embracing the changes occurring in their environment and the aspects of
their past they would like to retain.

1.2 Global Design

The effects of globalization have profound implications for designers who
have made a shift from egocentric design to empathic design. While
egocentric design was more about a designer’s expression and his/her desire
to change the world, empathic design is more about being sensitive to the
needs and aspirations of everyday people. In egocentric design, the

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minimalist tradition dictated the outputs of mainstream designers worldwide.
Any deviation from the minimalist design tradition has been deemed more as
a rebellious expression (e.g., Memphis) or as an attempt to “inspire avant
garde design through provoking innovation and discussion” (e.g., in Droog
Design). On the other hand, the outputs of empathic design have stemmed
from traditions, culture, and local knowledge.

Designers who aspire to design for unfamiliar or emerging markets have not
adequately understood the importance of cross-cultural or local influences
on people’s choices. Design outputs, especially those developed for
unfamiliar markets, need to incorporate local concepts, traditions, and
expressions. Additionally, new lifestyles that are emerging out of the fusion
of cross-cultural influences pose even greater challenges and opportunities
for designers.

It appears that designers can take their skills to new markets and transform
people’s lives using a magic wand of “design.” Some people even think that
the savages from the emerging economies, who were left behind in the fast
pace of modernization, could use some help from the world that is
technologically, economically, and intellectually advanced. The truth,
however, is different. With the enhanced access to new markets, designers
will be increasingly designing for people they do not know. In this context,
designers need tools to first familiarize themselves with the inhabitants of
the emerging global village and map the global mindsets.

1.3 Global Village

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To understand how different the world is from our own familiar
environment, it may be worthwhile considering some interesting facts
outlined in the book, If the World Were a Village. (Smith 2002) Smith
created a curriculum called, “Mapping the World by Heart” for school
children. In this book he outlined facts about the composition of the global
village by reducing over 6 billion people on the planet to a village of 100
people.

In this village:
• Of the 100 people in the global village, 61 are from Asia, 21 are from
China, 17 are from India, and five are from the United States.
• In this global village there are more than 6,000 languages, but more
than half of the population speak eight languages: 22 speak a Chinese
dialect; nine speak English; eight speak Hindi; seven speak Spanish;
four speak Arabic; four speak Bengali; three speak Portuguese; and
three speak Russian.
• More than half of the villagers are under the age of 30.
• Of the 100 people, 88 are old enough to read, 71 can read at least a
little, and 17 cannot read at all. More men are taught to read than
women.
• If all the money in the village were divided equally, each person
would have about $6,200 per year. But in the global village, money is
not divided equally. The richest 20 people each have more than
$9,000 a year; the poorest 20 people each have less than $1 a day.
• The average cost of food, shelter, and other necessities in the village is
$4,000 to $5,000 per year.
• Seventy six (76) villagers have electricity; 24 do not.
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 • In the village there are 42 radios, 24 televisions, 30 telephones (half of
them cellular phones), and 10 computers.
• By the year 2100 or sooner, there will be 250 people in the village.
Many experts think that 250 is the maximum number of people the
village can sustain. (Smith 2002)

Designers need to become “world minded” in order to participate

meaningfully and productively in the global village. Only by understanding
the complexities of this village and sensibilities of the villagers will
designers be enabled to conceptualize innovative tools.

1.4 The World is not so Flat

Thomas Friedman, in his book “The World is Flat”(2006), has termed the
effect of globalization as flattening the world. He has outlined 10 forces that
have flattened the world: the fall of the Berlin Wall; Internet browsers;
workflow software; open-sourcing; outsourcing; off-shoring; supply
chaining; logistics; Web searching; and digital, mobile, personal, and virtual
communication. Friedman suggests that,
“We needed the emergence of a large cadre of managers,
innovators, business consultants, business schools, designers,
IT specialists, CEOs, and workers to get comfortable with and
develop the sorts of horizontal collaboration and value-
creation processes and habits that could take advantage of
this new, flatter playing field. In short, the convergence of the
10 flatteners began the convergence of a set of business
practices and skills that would get the most out of the flat
world. And then the two began to mutually reinforce each
other.” (Friedman 2006)

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Friedman’s prescription only focuses on the community of people who have
adapted to or want to adapt to the forces of globalization. I would argue that
designing for the flat world would only limit our opportunities to a small
segment of the world population that is riding the waves of globalization. On
the other hand, there is a vast population of the global village that is either
oblivious to, resisting, in conflict with, or has only partially adapted to the
forces of globalization. Some of them have retained their original ways
despite the forces of globalization. We need a framework for designing for
the entire population of the global village that lives in a not-so-flat world.

The framework proposed at the end of this article will help designers and
innovators appreciate the nuances that distinguish various inhabitants of the
global village. It is based on the insights we have gained at SonicRim from
studying people, cultures, and trends in both advanced and emerging
markets.

1.5 States of Mind: Characters in the Scenarios for Global Design

The first step in any design process is knowing whom one is designing for.
One of the key concepts often used by the design community to bring focus
on the end user is persona.

At SonicRim we have found personas to be very useful in representing

findings from design research, especially in evoking the imagination of use
scenarios (past, present, and aspired) among stakeholders of innovation
processes in client organizations. However, we have also found that the
concept of personas is broadly used in various organizations, and the
information that is used to define the personas, such as users’ contexts,
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goals, pain points, and major issues from their environment that need to be
resolved, is drawn from different sources. Therefore, no standardized
method of defining personas has been established yet. I, therefore, see the
relevance of extending the concept of personas even further to support the
need to develop a framework for innovating for the global village.

Though personas are fictitious, client companies often mistake them for real
people representing specific customer segments. It is common for
organizations to conduct quantitative studies to identify exact numbers or
proportions of personas in the real world and then go looking for them. In
my view, quantitative segmentation of personas has the potential to alienate
significant numbers of end users from the scope of a design strategy. On the
other hand, for the purpose of understanding global markets, I propose the
concept of “states of mind” around which characters within design scenarios
can be portrayed. A single individual can live for and aspire to multiple
identities and multiple states of mind, and seek experiences that satisfy the
cravings of specific states of mind. I suggest looking for archetypical states
of mind as characters in scenarios of use that would be developed in the
framework for global design.

1.6 Three Dimensions

I propose three significant dimensions along which the states of mind can be
profiled when trying to capture the influence of globalization on people’s
needs and aspirations.
1. Sense of Belonging:

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 Fig. 1: First dimension: Sense of Belonging

An individual’s desire for connection to a larger entity has significant

influence on whom and how he/she chooses to interact within his/her
network. On one hand, one’s desire to connection would be defined by
parochial consideration, and on the other by a sense of belonging to a
global community. The middle space can comprise a sense of location: a
sense of connection to symbols and ideas that represent the city, town,
village, state, or the country of which a person is or has been a citizen or
resident of. Unlike the normal practice of defining the mid point in a
traditional scale, I would like to introduce the concept of middle space
because I do believe that the mid point in the proposed framework is a
utopian concept: a perfect global citizen.

2. Sense of Self:

Fig. 2: Second dimension: Sense of Self

Every individual has a tacit need for defining oneself in relation to the
rest of the world and projecting it before others. The need for a sense of
self has an impact on how one expresses himself/herself through

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products, brands, or environments one collects or builds around oneself.
In his book, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners
Think Differently...and Why, Richard Nisbett has outlined distinct
differences in the Western and Eastern ways of thinking. Westerners, he
found, “focus on objects and their control, Asians on context and
harmony; Westerners think linear and rhetorical, while Asians think
holistic and relational; where Westerners see simplicity, logic, and
stability, Asians find complexity, paradox, and change. These differences
are clear but not stark, and bicultural experience tends to blend them.”
(Nisbett 2005)

A wide gap that separates the intellectual inheritors of Aristotle from the
descendants of Confucius is articulated very clearly by Nisbett. In the
midst of globalization, when the need for cross-cultural understanding
and collaboration is central to any global endeavor, The Geography of
Thought offers an opportunity to respect the differences and identify the
fusion of thoughts that are occurring from the intermingling of people of
diverse cultural origins. The second dimension I propose in my
framework is inspired by the proposition of Nisbett that there is a distinct
difference in the cognitive makeup of people from different cultures.
Numerous conversations we have had with people from both Asian and
Western cultures have helped define this dimension. One end of the
continuum refers to very selfish aspirations, whereas the other end refers
to altruistic aspirations. The middle zone refers to the communal
associations, where individuals derive their sense of self from their
connection to a well-defined commune such as a caste, tribe, religion,
language, or profession.
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 3. Sense of Time:

Fig. 3: Third dimension: Sense of Time

People’s experience of a moment is influenced by their sense of the past,

present, and future. Depending on which time zone one wants to
experience at a given moment, one may choose the props (for
experiencing) that give them a vicarious sense of that time. One end of
this continuum refers to a sense of nostalgia, which may come from a
desire to experience traditions, rituals, myths, or just a feeling of the past.

On the other end is a desire to imagine being a part of the future. The
middle space of this continuum refers to the desire for being in sync with
the present—what is cool, trendy, and popular. Knowing where people
want to belong in time during that state can help conceptualize a design
strategy that reflects that time.

1.7 Framework for Global Design:

The innovation for global design is represented by a framework comprising
the three dimensions of mind.

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 Fig. 4: Framework for cross-cultural design

Designers can use this framework to plot states of mind to plot their target
consumers’ desires during the moment a product or brand within a particular
environment would be used. Defining the states of mind and associated
motivations, pain points, and scenarios of experience can help develop
compelling narratives of possible scenarios of use, which can inspire
innovative ideas that are relevant to different mindsets at a global level.

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 Fig. 5: Mapping design ideas to the framework
L to R: Khadi, the handspun cloth of India; Red, the new global initiative to help victims of aids in Africa;
Prius, the hybrid car; Wikipedia; MySpace; ipod; The Flag of the Third Reich; Volkswagen Beatle; and
Vietnam Memorial.

As a demonstration of how this framework may be used, I have

superimposed some of the designs from the past and the present that seem
(in my personal opinion) to resonate with varied states of mind that may fit
in with different segments of the framework.

1.8 Using the Framework

At SonicRim we have developed a number of methodologies and tools that
enable us to understand and articulate archetypal states of mind that exist
within the global marketplace.

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States of mind refer to the emotional and cognitive conditions that guide
people’s preferences for products, brands, information, and environments.
Over many years of experimentation with research tools, we have found that
verbal or observational protocols of research are not adequate in eliciting the
vital emotional and cognitive dimensions of people’s states of mind. We find
hands-on activities, such as cognitive mapping, collage making, day-in-a-life
maps, scrapbooking, Velcro modeling, etc., to be more useful in getting
people to reveal the tacit knowledge about their own experiences and
aspirations. Such activities, by virtue of play-like engagement with the tools,
enable the participants to tap into the implied aspects of their experience
more easily, compared to a verbal or written mode of expression. These
tools become modes of implicit communication between the end users and
researchers. We typically ask people to focus on the moments of experience
from their lives during which the products being designed would have a role.
By understanding their emotional and cognitive states during those
moments, we are able to interpret their motivations and pain points. This
information is then presented through a combination of visual illustrations
and written descriptions as “narrative” that inspire ideas.

The framework suggested in this article will hopefully serve as a new tool
for grasping the complexity of global design. Hopefully, it will help the
design community understand the extent to which their target audience has
been affected by the winds of globalization and the extent to which they (the
designers) could contribute to or refrain from designing for the global
village.

Bibliography:
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Smith, David J. (2002) If the World Were a Village. Kids Can Press Ltd.
Tonawanda, NY.
Friedman, Thomas L. (2003) The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the
Twenty-first Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
Nisbett, Richard E., The Geography of Thought: How Asians and
Westerners Think Differently… and Why. The Free Press, New York.
Shiva, Vandana. (2000) Poverty and Globalization. BBC Reith Lectures.
London.

About the Author:

Uday Dandavate is a founder and CEO of SonicRim, a global design research company. A
relentless globetrotter, Uday brings over 26 years of experience in design and innovation to
SonicRim. Uday leads a multidisciplinary team at SonicRim, where he studies people, cultures,
and trends around the world in order to drive design and innovation strategies for his clients. A
firm believer in the participatory approach to design, Uday has helped many Fortune 500
companies gain empathy for the experience of everyday people as they design products, brands,
and new technologies. He has also worked with many public organizations to help them
understand how to best deliver value to their audience through design and innovation. Uday is
often invited to speak at international conferences and universities to share his ideas and
experiences as an evangelist of everyday people in the world of business and technology. Uday is
also one of the founding faculty members at the 180 Academy, a new Danish innovation
university founded by Lego, Danfoss, Nokia, Gumlink, Bang & Olufsen, Novo Nordisk, and
Middelfart Sparekasse.
www.sonicrim.com

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