Comments on: 5 lies we tell ourselves (and funders) when developing new tech for people in need

By: Good Intentions Are Not Enough » Blog Archive » Interesting articles, posts, and guidelines from late Jan and early Feb 2010

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:43:11 +0000

[...] 5 lies we tell ourselves (and funders) when developing new tech for people in need – Catapult Design Blog – very practical look at the truth behind common assumptions [...]

By: nicholas evans

nicholas evans — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:55:53 +0000

Great thoughts Heather!

I think scale is dependent on the end goals of the designer. If the goal is to fill a specific need for a niche market, then the scale of the solution, appropriately, may not touch millions of people. If the goal of the designer is to affect millions of people, then that should determine the types of problems being tackled; specifically, only problems that affect millions of people can have solutions that reach millions of people.

So I think scale targets should be determined by the goals of the organization and designer and the scope of the problem.

nicholas evans

By: “We have this product idea…it’s going to change the world!” | The Arena Blog

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:03:38 +0000

[...] Fleming from Catapult Design has put together a list of 5 justifications people tell themselves when developing technology and products for people in need. Many apply to product development in [...]

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:29:01 +0000

I agree completely with the above lies… A lot of people and organizations try and boil the ocean to produce a cup of water… Relevance is the most important factor in determining product design. Stay focused on the solving a specific problem for a targeted group of people. THINK about how others can use and expand your market after you solve the specific issues facing your target user. The world is a very diverse place with many diverse cultures and there are very few products that can be universally marketed across many cultures without changes to the design.

By: Heather

Heather — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:07:29 +0000

Rob,
That’s awesome! Hope you are well and thanks for sharing the post! Would love to see Acumen’s list someday.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:59:31 +0000

Heather, I am going to share this post with my colleagues at Acumen Fund, where we evaluate lots of business plans for potential investments and see these sorts of landmines all over the place. It is good to have codified it. Thank you for writing it down. Keep up the good work!

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:18:18 +0000

Chris, Paul,

Great comments! I agree with you both that scale is challenging and important. From a design perspective, the power of consumer products (LED lights, cooking stoves, treadle pumps, etc) lies in the mass production of a single design capable of mass appeal.

However, the over-emphasis on scale often translates to the design-for-all mentality that derails the development of promising technologies. Past clients with products developed with the intention of selling to “the world” are the ones that most frequently run into issues with adoption, long-term efficacy, etc. Whereas the org that starts with a well-defined user group, with applied constraints, that addresses a specific need, is the generator of innovation. These considerate designs have greater potential for global translation when combined with a thoughtful distribution strategy.

Scale too easily translates to “design for all end-users”; but by doing so, we end up with a design that ignores all end-users.

By: paul polak

paul polak — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:28:23 +0000

I loved “5 lies” but I think the single biggest challenge in development is achieving scale for transformative tools and strategies.

Fixing a water system that reaches a hundred people in one village may be just as important to each of them as a treadle pump is to each of the 2 million or more people who bought them.

But only millions of radically affordable tools distributed through radically decentralized supply chains have the potential of transforming the lives 500 million poor people. Without this, I believe we have no hope of restoring the envirnmental balance of the planet.

paul polak

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:35:02 +0000

Thanks for this great article! I’m a business student with a passion for product development (especially for the developing markets). Doesn’t this article highlight the importance of bringing in marketing/business knowledge early on in the product development process? Developing new technologies and developing end products that utilize some of those technologies and actually have benefits for the target buyer/user are two so different things…
Also, if the product never becomes available for purchase, it doesn’t matter how great the product is. That’s why I especially love the statements “Establishing and implementing a marketing and distribution plan is achievable, but is often a task more complex and time-intensive than the design development” and ““Business” and “humanitarianism” are not contradictory terms”.

By: Chris Watkins

Chris Watkins — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:51:30 +0000

I think Paul Polak of D-Rev might partly disagree with point 2. To have a big impact, you need to scale. That’s not to say that it’s not worthwhile to build something that only 5000 people will use… but if we want to change the world, don’t we need to be looking for solutions that are as popular as mobile phones (or on the same order of magnitude).