Designers have a fast-changing role in this current society. Being more proactive to provide value to society is an ever-increasing trend these days. More and more people are being encouraged to do so. Engaging and making people more interactive by bringing them together is a vital part of this bringing about a change in the world. Service design thinking allows the designers to promote engagement and the spirit of a community. Identification and verification of the service design problems in the initial stages ended up being a problem. Both convergent and divergent thinking processes are improved with the service design thinking methodology. It allows the students to remain more vigilant and focused so they can take on the problems head-on from a service design angle. Service design thinking and project-based learning provided help to the main research team to construct communities that encourage learning and enhance communication and interpersonal skills. Problem solving and self-esteem was seen to increase with the students based on the reflections of the participants. Time management was also seen to be a vital skill for the participants for the involvement of the major stakeholders in the entire design thinking process.
A timeframe was made based on the academic time limitations when the unit was designed. It identified four main stages in the entire design thinking process which were – discover, define, develop and deliver. Stakeholder involvement and engagement were seen to have their up and downs. Project-based learning provides a lot of opportunities including the chance to have more inclusion of the stakeholders and a more individual experience. The students have to go through the data that they collected to come to a solution. This is done through the stages of Discovery, Define and Develop. At the delivery stage for a project with a short time span like this one, it is nearly always difficult due to the time constraint. The various stages of design thinking cannot be applied in time for the delivery process. The important things in this are the time and resources. As designers, the creation of social change in a more positive light means services have to be designed based on the problems that have been identified by the users. Design thinking has the quality of being user-specific which allows it to make the observations of the end-user easier. In spite of that, there is little evidence about how this process can be used to find a solution for the senior citizens to have more active lives while having a distance-based environment. Field research and case-based study is the approach being taken with this study. The design thinking process can be used for developing a solution for the enhancement of aging whether it’s in a situation where the residents are further from each other. Real-life situations were used as the students were motivated to do so. Towards the end, the solutions provided were looked at and were found to be innovative in nature. They helped the idea of active senior citizens and their needs in great detail with the stakeholders. The social impact was seen to be high with increased engagement among the students and the citizens in comparison to the classroom-based approach.
SOCIAL GOOD MESSAGE
Sparrows by morning, live in peaceful nests! Design shouldn’t dominate things, shouldn’t dominate people. It should help people. Don’t spend your time solving your favorite problems, solve problems that need to be solved, generically. A home is a place where you live, and society is a place where your story begins. Honesty shares honesty, as it is honesty’s nature. Stay always in Ablution and get back to the trust you have been, with.
