the method
How Can Design Transform How We Think About (Sustainable) Finance
“Economics, Politics and Personalities
are often inseparable”
Charles Edison
Eyal Fried
The story of economics is, in many ways, the story of human behavior, and of the human experience. Commodities, trade relations, the stock market - the value of all is determined prominently (climate conditions aside) by behaviors of humans, individuals, aggregated, organized, or otherwise. In fact, it could be argued that economic and financial systems and structures were set up to counter the unpredictability of human behavior, to “objectify” and standardize the estimation and trade rules of entities of value.
Design, as such, is both the expression of, and a conduit to - human behavior. It touches on human emotions, cognition, needs, and desires. It speaks the languages of culture, technology, craft, and aesthetics. As designers, we strive at understanding people (and if we don’t we know what to do about it), but we also understand technology and science, with which we like to experiment and challenge. Design helps us solve problems or make things “useful and beautiful”, but more often than not Design is the foundation for communication and learning, and thus for a better quality of life.
It is clear then, that when thinking and planning for an alternative future, particularly a path that is both radically different and highly sustainable, Design approach, thinking, and methods of operations are not only useful but exceptionally necessary.
Creating an innovative, inclusive Sustainable Finance modus operandi is a critical challenge. It penetrates deep into social and economical mega-structures while having a profound influence on the daily lives of all individuals, regardless of nationality, stature, or geographical location.
As such, we identified five key touchpoints that embody both the outreach of mega-structures (e.g. banks, insurance companies, etc.) and their impact on individual lives.
We featured these five domains as possible areas for radical innovation.
value
pension
interest
Insurance
taxation
With our Design approach for radical innovation, we implemented a mixture of validated methodologies to achieve four imperative goals:
Create an unbiased, “sterile” environment for the incubation of new financial models while phrasing an educated critique of the existing system/s.
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Collect and analyze “Real World” through design research methods to evolve the models
3
Prototype and test the models
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Formulate, contextualize and communicate insights in comprehensive and workable form so that the process, as well as the models, could be further evaluated and developed.
The framework laid out here is a first and unique attempt to apply Design POV and methodology in the Sustainable Finance innovation domain. More iterations are required to increase the mechanism’s accuracy and overall effect.
methodology
“Finance on Mars”: An Applied Design Methodology Case Study
“It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science”
Sagan Carl
Roee Bigger
Finance on Mars is a design framework asking to challenge the complexity of financial mechanisms from a far-enough perspective to allow a new approach of societal and sustainable humanity.
During the 5 days course the students had to get acquainted with a totally new professional field of knowledge, to adopt a new jargon and to identify the basic concepts and the rationale behind it. The learning process and their designerly critical mindset allowed them to examine the distortion produced by different stakeholders in the finance sector and to redesign financial services and products, proposing an alternative and preferable future.
The learning methodology was built considering the limited and intense timeframe of the course and also the students profile and diverse background. Inspired by speculative design and design thinking methodologies we developed a hands-on, creative and experiential learning process that resulted in applicable projects and concepts.
Introduction and reflection
The first day begins with an overview lecture and a quick-dive into the field of finance; understanding the basic concepts behind the neo-capitalism economy, the forces that influence it and the continuance distortion that weaken the societal ideas behind it. With that framing in mind we introduce to the students the process, the tools that we are going to use and the expected outcomes from the workshop. The second half of the day is dedicated to an initial research and a warm-up activity that brings the students into a financial mindset and reflects thoughts and questions. The students are asked to bring any personal financial document they can find and to analyse and visualize the data it contains, understanding the components and the mechanism behind it.
Day 1
Understand and define
The second day starts with a discussion based on the visual representations of the finance documents that the students created the day before. Afterwards the class divides into 5 groups of finance products: Value, Interest, Insurance, Pension and Taxation. Each group is asked to conduct a desktop design research in order to define what these financial concepts mean to people, to define who are the users and what are their needs. They are also going outside to the street to learn what people know about this and what they feel about it. This day ends with presentations and with knowledge sharing.
Day 2
Speculate (Ideate)
On the third day of the workshop with all that new knowledge about the finance world and how it should have created a better and equal society, we take the students go to Mars. We meet an expert - a space researcher who exp
oses us to the way that we assume we are going to live on Mars. Mars is used as an analogy to a faraway place where we can rethink everything and rebuild a new humanity from scratch. It allows us to leave behind negative influences and imagine a better financial world where fortune is meant to support the society in an equal and sustainable way.
Day 3
Conceptualize
The 4th day is dedicated to conceptualize, and to design the alternative solutions that the groups developed to the financial products that they are investigating. The students build prototypes to demonstrate the new concepts and test it with potential users that they met at the early stage of the research. The mentors support the teams along the day with feedback from financial, design and entrepreneurial point of views.
Day 4
Day 5
Storytelling
The last day is dedicated to wrap-up the projects and to prepare a deck. The students have to choose a creative way to present the projects and their new suggested narratives. At the end of the day they get the opportunity to pitch their projects in front of a panel of experts and to bring their ideas to the real (and present) world.