Design Thinking and ICT to Create Sustainable Development Actions

Design Thinking, ICT and Sustainable Development

Diane Pruneau and Joanne Langis

Université de Moncton, 18 Antonine-Maillet Avenue, Moncton, E1A 3E9, New Brunswick, Canada

Keywords: Design Thinking, Environmental Problems, ICT, Problem Solving.

Abstract: Environmental problems are complex, open and poorly defined. University students can be trained to solve

environmental problems and to create actions to repair, preserve, manage or improve the environment.

Some organizations have begun using design thinking with ICT to help students and the public solve

complex problems. Design thinking is a creative and collaborative form of work during which intuition is

important, solutions are numerous, experimentation arrives quickly, failure is perceived as learning and,

mostly, consumers’ needs are taken into consideration. In the framework of a rigorous process and specific

tools, design thinking calls in creative and analytical modes of reasoning for the development of products,

services and healthy places adapted to the targeted public. Also, if we want to use ICT to facilitate the

design thinking stages, various applications are available: Blendspace (to store all the information found

about a problem), Lino (to share pictures of the problem), ICardSort (to link and sort ideas), Loomio (to

choose a solution), Padlet (to draw prototypes in teams) and Wrike (to plan in a team).

1 INTRODUCTION

Sustainable development is a difficult concept to

grasp. Its nature, meaning, stakeholders and the

actions ensuring its fulfillment are starting to emerge

(Norberg and Cumming, 2008). Its definition has

also evolved considerably. Initially, it was conceived

as the use of resources and the environment to meet

current needs without compromising the needs of

future generations (World Commission on

Environment and Development, 1987). Later, it was

defined as a cultural adaptation made by society as it

becomes aware of the emerging necessity of non-

growth (Daly, 1993). Next, it was perceived as a

process for planning flexible, wise, long-term

development to avoid destroying the very resources

that keep us alive (Meadows and Randers, 2004).

Recently, the issue was to promote human well-

being taking into account the built, social and natural

resources (Costanza et al. 2013). Through all of

these definitions we see that sustainability is not an

end in itself, but a dynamic process that requires

resilience and an ability to manage resources wisely

in order to adapt to changes (Berkes, Colding, and

Folke, 2003).

Since sustainable development cannot be

implemented in a single day, we hear more and more

of a transition toward sustainability (Mochizuki and

Fadeeva, 2010). During this transition, many

environmental actions emerge throughout the world.

Environmental action is a voluntary action implying

decisions, planning, implementation and reflection,

undertaken by individuals or by a group with the

intention of reaching a specific goal (Emmons,

1997). Among today’s sustainable development

initiatives, there are the Slow Food Movement

(Petrini, 2006), Conservation Design (Arendt, 1996),

Transition Towns (Hopkins, 2008), Smart Growth

(Duany et al., 2010), Ecological Cities (Register,

2006), ban of harmful products (Maniates, 2010),

biodiversity restoration measures (wildlife crossings,

green walls, green roofs; Fuller et al. 2010),

sustainable happiness (O’Brien, 2012), assisted

migrations (McLelland et al., 2007), etc. Slow Food

practitioners take time to share « clean » local food

with people from their community. In Conservation

Design, while developing new neighborhoods, urban

planners first identify natural and cultural treasures

onsite then focus the buildings away from these

treasured areas. In Transition Towns, citizens

become aware of the urgency to prepare to the oil

peek’s impacts and are encouraged to develop their

resiliency by relocating what can be relocated and by

tightening social connections. Smart Growth and

Ecological Cities’ followers use various techniques

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Pruneau D. and Langis J..

Design Thinking and ICT to Create Sustainable Development Actions - Design Thinking, ICT and Sustainable Development.

DOI: 10.5220/0005484704420446

In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2015), pages 442-446

ISBN: 978-989-758-107-6

 2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

to absorb or reuse rain water, to slow down

automobile traffic, to increase density in inhabited

areas or to improve universal access to parks. The

ban on harmful products consists in prohibiting the

sale of products harmful to the health or of objects

made with threatened species. As for biodiversity

restoration measures, they are varied: wildlife

crossings, green walls, green roofs, biodiversity

hedges, animal shelters for specific species (insects,

amphibian, small mammals)… Sustainable

happiness as conceived by O'Brien (2012) is

characterised by the reflected and critical choice of

pleasure favourable to the health and quality of life

of humans and ecosystems. Finally, during assisted

migration, species threatened by climate change are

intelligently displaced or habitats are converted to

help these species migrate to more favourable

locations. Throughout these sustainability initiatives,

systems, structures, practices, the future, values and

the physical environment are modified and creativity

is omnipresent (Pruneau, Langis and Chamberland,

2014; Montuori, 2012).

2 LEADERS IN SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN

THINKING

Kerry et al. (2012) studied the competences

demonstrated by sustainable development leaders

working in forestry, urbanism and sustainable

agriculture. They found that these leaders

demonstrated creativity and more particularly design

thinking, a form of creative problem solving. Design

thinking (created by IDEO) is a creative and

collaborative form of work during which intuition is

important, solutions are numerous, experimentation

arrives quickly, failure is perceived as learning and,

mostly, consumers’ needs are taken into

consideration (Brown, 2009; Martin, 2009; Kelley

and Littman, 2005; Liedtka and Ogilvie, 2011;

Lockwood, 2010). Given the societal changes

needed in sustainable development, design thinking

is starting to be promoted in environment (Plattner et

al., 2011). To take risks; to open up to innovation; to

enlist in the unknown, the uncertain, the complex; to

understand with empathy what others go through

and how different events affect them; to foresee how

things could be different and to face current and

future challenges, one must have a good dose of

imagination and creativity. To create, experiment

and evaluate community environmental actions,

design thinking could prove to be promising.

Design thinking puts into practice the sensitivity

and the designer’s method in complex problem

solving. In the framework of a rigorous process and

using defined tools, it calls on creative and analytical

modes of reasoning (Lietdka, 2014). In recent years,

design thinking gained popularity and is now used to

solve problems and create products in business,

services, medecine and environment (Dorst, 2011;

Kimbell and Julier, 2012). The design thinking

process unfolds according to the following steps:

1. Inspiration: conduct an ethnographic study to

understand the people concerned by the problem (the

consumers) and the situation; 2. Synthesis : define

the problem many times, gather information and

different perspectives on the problem; 3. Ideation:

formulate many ideas; 4. Prototyping: prepare,

experiment rapidly, evaluate and refine prototypes

from the best ideas proposed; 5. Communication:

design and implement communication strategies.

The design thinking process steps are not linear

since the designers’ attention regularly moves

between the problem space and the solution space

while the empathy for the consumers’ needs

increases and the winning solution is refined. In

design thinking, three elements are combined:

empathy, creativity in solutions and the rational in

the analysis of solutions (which must correspond to

the needs) (Stewart, 2011). In this way, there exist

two types of design or process by which objects are

modeled to solve problems. The design can be

traditional and call on inductive and deductive

thinking. Using traditional design, simple and closed

problems can be solved, such as the identification of

the position of a star at a certain time of year.

However, to solve complex problems such as finding

climate change adaptation measures, the addition of

another type of thinking is needed: abductive

thinking consisting in considering one element that

could exist. Design thinking calls on inductive,

deductive and abductive thinking.

3 DESIGN THINKING AND ICT

Some universities have begun using design thinking

in combination with ICT to train their students to

solve complex problems. This type of design is

called social design (whose goal is social innovation;

Kimbell and Julier, 2012) and collaborative design

(Paulini, 2012; Seidel and Fixson, 2013). For

example, at Stanford University (San Francisco), at

Toronto University and at Temple University

(Philadelphia), the design thinking process is used

with students to help them find innovative solutions

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in business, urbanism, environment... In the same

way, at Cambridge University (Boston), a

technological environment called CSCL-

environment (Computer-Supported Collaborative

Learning) is used to help students represent, define

and solve complex problems. So, in universities and

organizations such as ClimateCoLab (MIT, USA),

MindLab (Denmark) and Creativity Institute

(Australia), with the help of tested problem solving

pedagogical approaches and technological

applications, students and citizens are empowered in

solving contemporary problems. Useful solutions

come out of these processes. There are also online

platforms (ex: Innocentive.com; Quirky.com;

OpenIdeo.com; MyooCreate.com) where challenges

are presented and the public or a given community is

invited to submit solutions. Here, the concept of

collective intelligence appears according to which

participation by many people promotes the

contribution of various perspectives for the

definition of a problem and the formulation of new

ideas.

At the various design thinking steps, numerous

applications can also be used: blogs and interactive

white boards, to define the problem; Wikis and

Popplet, to share solvers’ views and graphically

represent the problem; Skype, to share images of the

problem; Blendspace, to store all the problem’s

information; Lino, to share pictures of the problem;

PiratePad, to write in a team; ICardSort, to link and

sort ideas, Loomio to vote in order to choose a

solution; Padlet, to draw prototypes in teams and

Wrike, to plan in a team (Darrow, 2013; Langis,

2015).

4 DESIGN THINKING,

ICT AND SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT

Given the important need to innovate in sustainable

development, the design thinking process could

prove to be useful to invent structures or products

allowing to repair or to improve the quality of the

environment (Brown, 2009). For example, using the

design thinking process, university students could be

invited to restore biodiversity in an urban setting by

inventing then testing an insect hotel. In order to do

this, they should take their consumers’ (the insects)

shelter and food needs into consideration then install

and test hotel prototypes built to answer these needs.

In the same way, students could create a bird nest

material dispenser taking into consideration the nests

that are normally built by the local birds. Finally,

they could apply the design thinking process to

organize a community refrigerator project to collect

and distribute leftover food to supply meals for

homeless people. Here, homeless people’s needs, the

needs of the families supplying the leftovers and

those of the volunteers transporting the food as well

as operation and maintenance costs should be taken

into consideration during the design thinking

process.

During the design steps carried out in the

classroom or remotely, various technological

applications can be used. At the design thinking

Inspiration stage, students must investigate the

problem-situation collaboratively as well as the

consumers’ needs. As we know, environmental

problems are complex, comprised of causes, actors,

impacts, places and circumstances. Stormboard, a

collaboration tool, could enable a group of students

to study a complex problem in all its aspects. Indeed,

Stormboard allows users to draw columns titled

What? When? Who? Where? Why?, where solvers

can add information on various aspects of the

problem, with the help of words, images and even

videos. Realtimeboard and blogs (such as Wordpress

and Overblog) could also serve as shared online

platforms to gather the documentation found about

the problem: pictures, documents, films and Skype

conversation recordings with experts or consumers.

At the Inspiration stage, the Narrative Clip, a

small wearable camera that is attached to

consumers’ clothing could also be used to document

their experience of a given area while they are

moving in this area.

At the design thinking Synthesis step, students

must pose the problem, that is summarize, simplify

and organise the information found about the

problem (Schacter et al., 1997). They must represent

the problem in a way that is favourable to solving it

and make connections between its elements (causes,

places, impacts…). Visual representations

(drawings, graphs, concept maps…) allows to study

the problem in depth visually, verbally, numerically,

sequentially and emotionally (by expressing the

feelings and opinions linked to the situation) (Green,

1993). Visual representations help relieve the brain

and facilitate the exchange of information between

solvers. At the Synthesis step, Popplet and Mind42

could facilitate the community of solvers task by

providing the interface to produce rich conceptual

maps with boxes, links between the boxes, drawings

and even Youtube videos inserted at relevant

locations on the map. At this stage, programs such as

Moovly, iMovie and Stupeflix could also be useful to

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summarize the study realised on the problem. These

programs would allow students to easily produce

videos where we would see them discussing the

problem.

At the Ideation step of the design thinking

process, Padlet, which offers a white wall that can

be used as an online brainstorming tool, could be

helpful. In the same way, specialised sites or sites

with sites focusing on environmental subjects such

as Pinterest, La Bioguia and ClimateCoLab could be

used to represent ideas to inspire new solutions

paths. Finally, Loomio and Mural.ly, collaborative

decision making tools allowing the evaluation of

different ideas and to grant them a value, would

facilitate the choice of solutions that would be tried

out as prototypes. Loomio consists of a discussion

and a voting tool. Mural.ly has a flexible canvas to

gather information and make a decision with a

voting tool.

At the Prototyping stage of the design thinking

process, drawing tools such as iDroo, kleki.com and

Sketches would help to prepare prototypes of the

best ideas at the Ideation step, in order to collect

consumers’ opinions on those prototypes. As for

Avocado, it would help to represent prototypes with

the help of successive images while Second Life, a

3D virtual universe, would materialize the

prototypes. As for the prototypes that need to be

built and not only drawn or virtually animated,

Wrike, a project management tool (that allows to list,

describe and assign tasks) ensures effective planning

of the construction and prototype trials.

Finally, the Communication stage of the design

thinking process would be facilitated and enlivened

by the use of a tool to produce posters (Glogster),

magazines (Madmagz) or presentations (emaze).

5 CONCLUSIONS

Environmental problems are complex, open and

poorly defined. They include many characteristics,

functions and variables. Many links exist between

their elements and solving them requires

interdisciplinary collaboration. Design thinking has

already produced original and relevant solutions to

these types of problems. By way of example, IDEO

company engineers used design thinking in

developing countries to build an Aquaduct Concept

Vehicle, a bicycle that transports, filters and stores

water while the cyclist pedals. Thus, design thinking

would be relevant to create conservation,

management or environmental improvement actions

with university students or the public. Combined

with ICT, design thinking would be even more

promising to facilitate the collaborative design of

healthy and environmentally conscious places,

practices or products. In fact, ICT could facilitate the

collaborative work at the Inspiration, Synthesis and

Ideation steps of design thinking by offering

platforms to share perspectives and information on

the problem, discussion platforms and platforms to

visually represent problems. As well, as we know,

many university courses are partially or completely

offered online nowadays. Online communication

tools (Skype, Facetime) open endless possibilities to

work with a remote group and to contact experts and

people outside the classroom to better describe the

problem. At the Prototyping step, ICT allow a less

costly and quick production of drawings and models

demonstrating the best solutions. They strengthen

students’ capacity to plan and manage prototype

trials. Finally, at the Communication step, the

possibilities of graphic design and publication of

images and videos using ICT are endless.

The design thinking process should be the

subject of environmental education research in the

coming years. Trials using design thinking to invent

healthier ways of life and land use planning could be

made with university students, first without using

ICT and afterwards adding ICT to the process.

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