42. A Qualitative Study of Global Design Practices to Build Directions and Opportunities for Indian Social Design

The design industry including design knowledge and practice is constantly evolving itself to fulfill the evolving needs of society in order to deliver a larger social impact. Social design is a field that stresses the positioning, responsibility and collective societal impact of designers and designed products. The underdeveloped and developing world can benefit largely from social design interventions. India is a developing country with social problems like poverty and poor health care—giving a large scope for social design work. However, major development of social design is limited to other countries. A qualitative study was conducted with 14 global design practitioners to understand the social design theory, knowledge and practice existing globally and identify directions and opportunities for the Indian context, by using a cultural lens. The study suggests creating open dialogue, simplifying vocabulary, bias-busting, fostering cross-cultural social design and encouraging mindfulness as the main opportunities. These opportunities can be applied both in social design practice and design education.