human(itarian) to human.

Humanitarian design in general is based around a really great idea. This idea is most often that of helping those less fortunate than one’s self, most often in a far off country. That said, the execution of humanitarian design is not always so hot. Sometimes, it’s awesome (solar cooker), but a lot of times, it’s not. Why is this?

Is it because of a lack of resources? Maybe. Cultural gap? Probably. Financial difficulty? Almost definitely. But these are things that determined designers surmount all the time. What is it that just makes products for the developing world hard to design?

In writing and in film and other forms of storytelling, the seasoned vets will tell you to “Write what you know.” This validates anything that you’ll have to say to your audience. It keeps you as a kind of authority on whatever subject/message you are communicating. It makes what you say true. I would assert that one of the defining reasons that humanitarian design can suffer is because it is design for a super-specific situation that often times the designer has no experience in whatsoever. Designers often get stuck saying this phrase—“As designers, ____________” “we should…. it’s our job to…” We are humans first. Connection happens on a human level. Not on some hierarchy of products from designer to user. So many products for the developing world are designed in ignorance beyond what words on a paper might say about a culture or climate.

100% of people are human. Believe it, or not. That is something enormous that we all have in common. It’s probably one of the most important things that we have in common. That is the basis for universal design (again, that solar cooker). At an even baser level, it is something that we can all connect on. The stories that Dr. Becker told last week made sense and spoke to us all on a human level. Emotion, pain, smell, taste. And I believed him. Because he was telling us about something that he knew about. He had been there. He had the experience. Validation.

The second story that Dr. Becker told is one that I’m familiar with—the starfish story. It speaks a very simple truth: Help. Whoever you can, whenever you can. It matters. I believe this to be true. There are effective ways to help, and ineffective ways to help. the devotion of one’s life to humanitarian design, while noble, needs to be backed up with experience that in reality, many people don’t have. It’s a hard situation, to want to help and to not know how.

I think that one of the most effective ways to help someone in another country is simply to go. Or at least sponsor someone else who will go. Flawed as NGOs are at times, they help in a very direct way, on a person to person base. Create an interaction on a human level. Help one person. Help as many as you can. Gain experience with one person. A group of people. A country. A Culture. Be a human first. Make what you say true. Then figure out what to do “as a designer.”