ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews four contemporary design research approaches focused on processes of social change. These are critical practices in design stemming from critical approaches in social sciences; design for social practices informed by sociological studies of consumption and socio-technical change; transformation design and its resonance with action research methodology; and design for social innovation relying on recent innovation and behavioural change studies. It identifies how these four approaches vary in terms of conception of change, focus of intervention, guiding principles and methodology and so to inform and provides some basic guidance to designers and design researchers entering into projects aimed at effecting systemic social change. In such terms, neither design nor research may be about solving problems or reducing uncertainty, but opening up complexity and criticality”. Transformation design is focused beyond incremental change towards what in ‘organisational development’ studies is described as paradigmatic change, meaning a change in the core assumptions and world-view of an organisation or community.
