Where does innovation come from? In agriculture, innovation often comes from a scientist. But it can also come from another kind of expert: the farmer who spends her life working in the field.
Our grantee, International Development Enterprises (IDE), and the design firm IDEO collaborated to create a toolkit—called the Human Centered Design toolkit—to help organizations that work on agriculture better listen to farmers and better translate their experience and expertise into new design solutions.
IDE works to design and market “radically affordable” microirrigation technology for small farmers. For instance, IDE designed a treadle pump for use in Ethiopia. This water-lifting device works much like a bicycle, drawing up water as the operator pedals, and can help farmers irrigate small plots of land. This simple, low-cost technology is built from discarded materials and is perfect for use by women and children, who are often responsible for collecting water on small farms but lack the strength required to draw water through traditional rope-and-pulley systems.
The prototype of this treadle pump showed promise; however, it failed to catch on in many communities in Ethiopia where it’s not socially acceptable for women to ride bicycles. While ingenious, the technology didn’t take farmers’ needs and contexts fully into consideration.
Human Centered Design
Learning the limits of your expertise—and challenging your own assumptions—can be the beginning of a whole new level of learning. For IDE, learning about the details of poor farmers’ daily lives—for example, the unexpected importance of gender roles in appropriate design—was critical to helping the organization develop technology that would meet farmers’ needs.
The Human Centered Design toolkit, developed together with IDEO, helps do just that. The kit offers new tools and techniques to ensure that farmers’ needs are at the heart of design. Aspiration cards are one of the tools in the kit. These cards feature an assortment of diverse images that help farmers think about what they want out of life and inspire them to talk about their lives in fresh new ways.
Another tool in the kit is the Hear Guide. This training manual guides teams on who to talk to, how to gain empathy for people’s realities, and how to capture stories that supply a deeper understanding of farmers’ needs, barriers, and constraints.
Al Doerksen, CEO of IDE, said that the process “taught us a new way to listen.” IDE has introduced the toolkits to each of its country directors, who are using them in unique ways. In Cambodia, the toolkit has sparked ideas about a low-cost latrine. In Ethiopia, it’s being used to find new ways to get product and market information to farmers.
Now, others can take advantage of the Human Centered Design toolkit to better hear, create, and design technology for farmers.
To download or learn more about the Human Centered Design toolkit, visit IDEO’s web site.