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Human Centered Design

Dec 08

Social Innovation Using Design Thinking

By Design Thinking, Human Centered Design

The challenges that governments, business owners and communities are facing due to COVID19 cannot be solved with existing strategies and management. As a framework for innovation, Design Thinking can assist both the private and public sector in tackling both small – and large-scale issues, such as those we are now facing. This is particularly important in a country like South Africa, where traditional public service processes can take years to design and implement viable solutions (at which point, they are often no longer relevant).

Design Thinking offers a different paradigm for complex problem solving that takes a human-centred approach. Ensuring that solutions are developed with and around the people involved, Design Thinking first seeks to understand their needs, motivations, frustrations and behaviours. With this understanding, the team then takes an iterative, learn-as-you-go approach to build the best solutions to meet the users’ needs.

When working to create a lasting social impact project, one should consider the following criteria:

  1. Community – enriching those around you
  2. Ecology – not harming, but rather benefitting the planet
  3. Dignity – valuing and respecting people and ensuring they feel a sense of worth
  4. Profitability – the ability to make money

Using Design Thinking, we can create high-impact solutions that address all 4 of these criteria.

Design Thinking In Action

Re:solve Challenge

To help empower and encourage entrepreneurs and SMEs in creating innovative change for a post-COVID world, we recently launched a collaboration with The Craft and Design Institute (CDI), a non-profit company, and the City of Cape Town to launch the Re:solve Challenge. Fifteen teams or individuals will have the opportunity to build and prototype their business idea with the help of highly skilled business consultants, design-thinking facilitators, product developers, and creative experts.

The four-month programme will focus on uplifting local entrepreneurs who seek to solve current issues in transport, hygiene, food, security, education, medical care, retail and micro-enterprises.

Impact Week – SouthAfricaVsCOVID19

RE:solve followed shortly after our recent partnership with Impact Week, which also called young creatives from all over the world to solve COVID-related challenges using human-centred design toolkits.

Learn more about Design Thinking by taking the online course we created with Red and Yellow Creative School of Business. Learn more about it here.

Oct 21

How We Made Digital Transformation More About People

By Design Thinking, Digital Transformation, Human Centered Design

Listen to dY/dX partner, Nevo Hadas speak on the School of Innovation podcast with Yaniv Corem

Digital Transformation is not just about automation and Design Thinking is not just for designers. Both require a human-centred approach and a shift in mindset. In this podcast, dY/dX partner, Nevo Hadas, unpacks what the future of work looks like, busts common myths around design thinking and shares a successful case study of design thinking in action.

Jul 15

Digital Transformation in Retail – Zero Packaging Solutions

By Design Thinking, Human Centered Design, Product Development 6 Comments

Packaging has defined how modern and informal retail works. The entire system is centred around packaging, from displays, pricing, shelving, distribution, returns and more. Consumer purchasing behaviour, the way we promote goods (2 for 1), how check-out works, all link back to packaged goods as the “atoms” of modern retail. So with plastic waste and single-use packaging being responsible for 40% of all plastic production, it’s a systemic challenge to make significant change. Consumers are demanding smarter solutions and less packaging, but retailers and brands are struggling to find the way forward because it is a complex system, not just a single point solution.

First developed for the informal market, where smart dispensing can increase affordability and food safety, we were excited about the ideas potential scalability at formal retail too (read more about our experience in the informal market here).

The smart dispenser concept provides an insight into the future of retail. They benefit retailers, consumers, FMCG product manufacturers and the environment. Consumers are enabled to purchase the quantity they need and take their purchases away in their own container, use a disposable paper bag or purchase a container.

Through IoT-based technology, the smart dispenser shows their purchase cost as they dispense on a screen. The same sensors provide real-time stock levels to both the store and the manufacturer, simplifying restocking and distribution. 

If you can imagine how the customer shopping experience, payment experience and retail back-end systems change when you have a store with 300 or more smart dispensers for all dry goods (powders, grains, single purchase items) and liquids, it is a profoundly disruptive idea – like ordering a car on your smartphone was 10 years ago.

The smart dispensers allow retailers to offer their customers a packaging-free purchasing experience at scale, while at the same time increasing the effectiveness of their floor space through vertical stacking and real-time stock levels per dispenser. FMCG manufacturers can reduce their packaging costs by being able to ship in bulk to retailers and use the data generated by the smart dispenser to manage re-ordering and distribution more effectively.

Feb 19

DyDx Partner Templar Wales talks Human Centered Design – Business Day TV

By Human Centered Design, In the news No Comments

DyDx partner Templar Wales appeared on The Big Small Business Show on Business TV, where he unpacked some of the basics that go into HCD thinking, and how businesses could be looking to innovate with this approach.

The Big Small Business Show aims to give viewers practical and down-to-earth business advice. The programme is tailor-made for entrepreneurs, giving great insight and tips to those who want to grow their ventures, as well as those who want to take the step towards entrepreneurship.