Category Archives: Perspective

Vanishing Point

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 18, 2021

Or, does one step outside of the system in its entirety in order to discover one’s humanity? What is the system that threatens you the most? Which system oppresses you? Is it possible to extricate oneself from such systems entirely? Or one must make do with what one can to shield oneself from such systems? […]

Posted in Perspective | Tagged digitalization's discontents, where's the magic of my music? | Leave a comment

Digitalization’s discontents and the meaning of life

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 17, 2021

I was musing on the concept of grand purposes last night, and how the concept of finding meaning in one’s life work tends to be correlated with world changing scale. What if it wasn’t so anymore? Sitting here isolated by externally imposed constraints restricting movement and in person meetings, I got to wondering how I […]

Posted in Perspective | Tagged digitalization's discontents, kaleva's songs, love | Leave a comment

Have I found my new focal length?

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 16, 2021

When I picked up the metaphorical pen again last month, here on this blog, after almost a decade of silence, I discovered in the course of my writing that I must find a way to change the focal length of my mind’s eye. As I wrote on March 20th, only my second post in the […]

Posted in Perspective | Tagged inner eye, kaleva's songs, perspective, word song | Leave a comment

The fast moving river flowing unseen beneath still waters

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 15, 2021

I do not yet have all the words to craft an articulation of the movement I can sense occurring beneath the surface of my thinking and feeling. But happening it is, and so I play the keyboard tonight in hopes of picking up the faint sounds of the music I haven’t given up looking for […]

Posted in Perspective | Tagged kaleva's songs, lyrics, music, sting | Leave a comment

Do digital lyrics convey the magic?

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 14, 2021

One of the questions being raised in social conversations – over digital means – with friends in different countries is whether the acceleration of digitalization brought about by the pandemic’s constraints might not, in fact, be influencing those of us of a certain age to think like Luddites. This sentence could probably have been framed […]

Posted in Perspective | Tagged digital, kaleva's songs, kalevala | Leave a comment

Finding the magic of word song in the literature of change agents: Weick’s change poets

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 13, 2021

The minute I set off on a path to unknown discovery, I came across Weick’s reflections on change poetry. Given that I picked up my metaphorical pen to write again after a decade or more of constricted silence after being inspired by the magic of word song – the runot of Finland’s Kalevala. Simplistically put, […]

Also posted in Literature review | Tagged kaleva's songs, kalevala, magic, poetry, sensemaking, weick, word songs | Leave a comment

Theoretical background for contextualizing User Agency in Participatory Processes

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 12, 2021

Scandinavian participatory design practices are not distinguished by particular methods but rather by political commitments to societal concerns and relationships with participating users and communities. Pelle Ehn writes:`In the interest of emancipation, we deliberately made the choice of siding with workers and their organisations, supporting the development of their resources for a change towards democracy […]

Also posted in Africa, Analysis, Assumption filter, Design, Design Methodology, Frameworks, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Literature review, Mobile platform, Research, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology, User research | Tagged africa, agency, informal economy, mama biashara, participatory design, remoteresilienceproject, scandinavian tradition, user agency | Leave a comment

Disrupting the Default: Must it fall under “development” if the geography is Africa?

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 11, 2021

Where does it say that if the geography of the study or innovation or project is in Africa then it must be ‘development’? Is it Tuesday, that it must be Belgium? Will the ‘tyranny of dominant logic’ continue to hold us in thrall regardless of all the massive changes overtaking our world today; including the […]

Also posted in Africa, Afrique francophone, Analysis, Assumption filter, Design, Innovation Planning, Literature review, Sub Saharan Africa | Tagged design, Fanon, framing, keywords, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, sensemaking, taxonomy, weick | Leave a comment

Scandinavian Approaches to Participatory Design: Simply a tradition or a coherent philosophy of design?

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 10, 2021

“Scandinavian participatory design approaches emphasise change and development, not only technological change and systems development, but change and development of people, organisations, and practices, occurring in changing socio-historical contexts.” Gregory, J. (2003). Scandinavian approaches to participatory design. International Journal of Engineering Education, 19(1), 62-74. Long ago, an essay I wrote on “Why is design important?” […]

Also posted in Articles on Design and Innovation, Design, Design Methodology | Tagged design philosophy, gregory, human centered design, participatory design, scandinavian tradition, user centered design | Leave a comment

The power of sensemaking lies in its ability to reframe the challenge and its context

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 8, 2021

A key characteristic of participatory design is the use of physical artefacts as thinking tools throughout the process. This process is a key characteristic of the various participatory design practices emanating from the Scandinavian research-led tradition (e.g. Greenbaum and Kyng, 1991). As highlighted by Sanders (2006), users in participatory design serve as “expert[s]of their experiences” […]

Also posted in Design Methodology, Literature review | Tagged adaptation, adaptive capacity, design thinking, framing, innovation, mobile telephony, participatory design, remoteresilienceproject, scandinavian tradition, sociotechnical systems, systemic shock, technology, workers | Leave a comment