The design process usually implies some innovation aspect. When you are immersed in the design world it is clear that being innovative and bring to the table solutions that offer a fresh air is something essential, but many times our solutions end up being unsuccessful and you might wonder, what could have happened?

MAYA PRINCIPLE

***Design for the Future, but Balance it with Your Users’ present***

Explains how and why we should approach our target market and offer them new solutions in a cautious way.

“This principle argues that customers should be offered a type of innovation that reflects a certain degree of novelty, but without losing sight of familiar elements that allow users to feel more confident when they have the first interactions. The author proposes to find a middle point between what is already known and the new which you are trying to introduce to a market because without this balance one could face a market that rejects the proposals. MAYA stands for “Most Advanced. Yet Acceptable”

It is interesting how within the design discipline you find yourself dealing with this situation mostly every day, trying to find a good balance between Human Centered Design and Radical Innovation. It is up to each designer to decide which way to go, but what is very important is not to underestimate the power of this principle and not to forget that this type of balance has led other designers to make successful products or services.

The question is now, how can I do it? Dam reveals certain elements that may be applicable at the moment of ideation and diffusion, such as introducing the innovation gradually over time, not running the risk of introducing something totally new at once. Another critical aspect is the inclusion of familiar elements in the visual appearance, so for consumers, it will be easier to relate to it. The familiarity of products is very important for a good acceptance. Finally, a design on the needs and current knowledge of users, this could be seen today as Human Centered Design, a method that involves an exhaustive ethnographic consumer research.

For the project development, I would like to include three fundamental pillars of design to cultivate a collaborative solution that involves the local community. These three pillars are:

SOCIAL INNOVATION

“Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress. Social innovation is not the prerogative or privilege of any organizational form or legal structure. Solutions often require the active collaboration of constituents across government, business, and the nonprofit world.”

— www.gsb.stanford.edu

Social innovation try to address social challenges that are complex in nature. In this issue it is worth highlighting the book "The Social Labs Revolution" Zaid Hassan, a co-founder of Reos Partners, makes the case that taking a planning-based approach to risk almost certain failure. Instead I have expounds on an experimental, prototyping based approach, social labs, that have proven more effective in addressing complex challenges

SPECIFIC CONTEXT SYSTEM

It may seem obvious that working with indigenous communities needs to include local solutions is, but many solutions that have been tried to implement different kind of solutions in the past, have failed, due to the lack of research and development of a work scheme with a high content of human centered design.

“Design for localism - local is a quality, not a place marker”

— Sustainist Design Guide: How sharing, localism connectedness and proportionality are creating a new agenda for social design.

There is a strong relationship when one is leading a social project among the community, the local experiences and knowledge and the search to exalt the roots that the locals have. The search for solutions in relation to the drinking water access of the Wayuu community is determined by a general questioning of how these communities can be empowered to find their own solutions and carry on with them without the need of facilitators there?

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Linear economy does not take into account the whole life cycle of the product, and maybe just because you did not have to worry about this, the massive production took over the system.

Talking about a Cyclical economy makes necessary to put in the table the Circular economy which in the Ellen Macarthur Foundation website is explained as:

“A circular economy is restorative and regenerative by design, and aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value at all times. The concept distinguishes between technical and biological cycles. As envisioned by the originators, to circulate is a continuous positive development cycle that preserves and enhance natural capital, optimizes resource yields, and minimizes system risks by managing finite stocks and renewable flows. It works effectively at every scale.”

— www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org