Worth-Focused Design, Book 2: Approaches, Context, and Case Studies

This book introduces the concept of worth for design teams, relates it to experiences and outcomes, and describes how to focus on worth when researching and expressing design opportunities for generous worth. Truly interdisciplinary teams also need an appropriate common language, which was developed in the companion book Worth-Focused Design, Book 1: Balance, Integration, and Generosity (Cockton, 2020a). Its new lexicon for design progressions enables a framework for design and evaluation that works well with a worth focus.

Design now has different meanings based upon the approach of different disciplinary practices. For some, it is the creation of value. For others, it is the conception and creation of artefacts. For still others, it is fitting things to people (beneficiaries). While each of these design foci has merits, there are risks in not having an appropriate balance across professions that claim the centre of design for their discipline and marginalise others. Generosity is key to the best creative design-delivering unexpected worth beyond documented needs, wants, or pain points. Truly interdisciplinary design must also balance and integrate approaches across several communities of practice, which is made easier by common ground. Worth provides a productive focus for this common ground and is symbiotic with balanced, integrated, and generous (BIG) practices. Practices associated with balance and integration for worth-focused generosity are illustrated in several case studies that have used approaches in this book, complementing them with additional practices.