Design for Socio-technical Innovation: A Proposed Model to Design the Change

Abstract

We currently live in a world in constant mutation and plenty of multiples uncertainties. The scale of the world economy and the technological development is unprecedented, but at the same time most of the world population faces daily challenges against serious problems. That is why people yearn for autonomy and reject the mediated influence of traditional institutions, which have failed to keep up with people’s changing needs and desires. By this way, socio-technical innovation implies a process of change in both the structure of a socio-technical system and the relationship among the actors inside that system. Designers’ skills to design products, communications, interaction, services and spaces have been used to transform the ways in which people interact with systems, services, organizations and policies. The proposed model reflects a modular structure, which can be adapted to the specificities and features of each social-technical innovation.