Design with the developing world: A model with seven challenges for the future

Design with the Developing World (DDW) brings a unique set of challenges as it asks people with very different expectations to collaborate on sustainable system solutions. Scoping for these design projects is therefore highly challenging, as there is little information on what needs to be considered in this vast collaborative and interdisciplinary process. This study identifies, and analyzes the barriers and enablers extracted from a selection of DDW literature, and clusters them into combinations of data effecting Users, Designers and Stakeholders. As a whole, we find that DDW projects need to grow relationships between each group. These groups must come to understand each other to create a new hybrid technology, as well as the supporting systems. Although gaps exist between Designers, Users, and Stakeholders in all instances where technology is created, we suggest here that larger gaps exist in the DDW domain. A transformation of these gaps is needed during development projects. These gaps stream into seven challenges we identified to create a methodical, well-leveraged, desirable, strategic, enabling, sustainable, and innovative solution.