Social sustainability online

Olivia Ratten, a design student at Swinburne University, approached me to do a quick interview for a uni assignment on "social sustainability" - what follows is the results of the interview.

But first, a tiny bit of context. I wasn’t sure entirely what Olivia meant by "social sustainability", so I asked and this was her response:

The best example I have been presented on designing for social sustainability is the work of Architect and former Mayor of Curitiba (Brazil) Jaime Lerner. The garbage recycling system he introduced in the 80’s improved the local environment, saved money for industry and provided new jobs for those who may otherwise be unemployable. In addition a green trading system provided fresh food to those in serious poverty in exchange for recyclable garbage that couldn’t be collected by ordinary means.

There are many similar examples of systems he created that reward citizens for contributing to the environment by providing them with goods and services they need, meaning no one should be neglected. I see ’social sustainability’ as a holistic term that provides for all members of a society and in this example it is clear that ’social sustainability’ and ‘environmental sustainability’ go hand in hand and members of a society need to contribute to a society and it’s environment in order for it to remain sustainable.

The next question that needs answering is - Which society? When discussing social sustainability in the context of digital media I can discuss specific groups like members of a forum, or a city or the whole world. So I am attempting to cover both specific online groups and local geographical societies - cities/countries.

What’s really exciting to us is that a design student is researching this as part of their course-work! Although my responses aren’t directly related to the kind of sustainability work Olivia mentions above, hopefully they will be of some interest regardless.

The full interview is over the jump.

Olivia Ratten:

Do you see digital technology/web design being used to improve social sustainability within a real world society, are online groups and digital environments relevant to social sustainability?

Grant Young:

Online communication, and online communities in general, are having a big impact on social sustainability - as a way of connecting people that are interested in these issues - be it social justice, sustainable living or some other issue. Some sites, such as WorldChanging.com, TreeHugger, ActNow and GetUp are great examples. Each of these sites not only provides a service to the community in raising awareness and helping people to live more in line with their values, but also as a place where connections can be made.

On an environmental level the digital revolution has opened up the possibility for connecting and collaborating with people around the globe, reducing the need for travel, but also allowing connections to be made that otherwise would be nearly impossible. The cross-cultural, cross-boundary, cross-country sharing means that people aren’t working in isolation - they can learn and support each other.

The other way that digital environments assist is in transfer of capital and fundraising. Kiva is a great example of the former - a micro-finance institution that not only connects individual investors with businesses in developing countries. This model not only removes the middleman and creates a more direct personal connection between lender and borrower, but it also opens up the opportunity for those of us that don’t have the means to set up a microfinance bank or institution to lend small amounts that make a big difference to the recipient.

OR:

Web 2.0 tools have allowed the non-tech-savvy to embrace and contribute to the web medium, what do you think this means for the direction of web design? How do you think the non-tech-savvy are going to help shape it?

GY:

I think the non-tech-savvy are already shaping the design of the web. There are two ways:

1. The way in which sites are designed around leveraging the power of the network and social features;
2. How users are shaping the sites in ways they were never designed for.

Regarding the first point: Amazon, Ebay, Flickr, YouTube, Digg and del.icio.us all leverage the value of the network - where individual action provides network benefit. Amazon’s user reviews, Ebay’s reputation system, YouTube and Digg’s rating system all benefit the community while providing individual utility. Designing with these things in mind is critical for a successful online space.

They all evolve through the input of the community - Ebay through it’s reputation system, Flickr was originally an online game, del.icio.us added feature support for the "for:username" tagging syntax that was already in use by the community.

As for the second point: The perfect summary of the latter is MySpace. This is a site that has been embraced by the community despite the obvious [from a designer's perspective] design flaws. Through some accidental "features" of the design of MySpace (the developers not stripping out HTML code from profiles that people entered) the MySpace community have worked out how to twist their profiles to reflect their personality. On a purely design level these mods aren’t necessarily all that appealing.

This is, in a sense, the democratisation of design - shifting the power back to the users. In all of the sites I mentioned above, they evolved the features of the site based on users actions.

OR:

In your experience what has been the most effective method of engaging web users to spread a campaign message? Do they need a visuals and symbolism, or can a text based blog or forum environment be just as effective?

GY:

Both can be effective - it completely depends on the context and the audience. And there’s nothing stopping you from doing both to great effect.

For example, Amnesty International Australia’s "Message in a bottle" campaign (produced by Digital Eskimo) used a very simple visual statement that spread virally, through the text-based email. I even blogged about it (before I started working for Digital Eskimo) - so even though the main site was a Flash based visual statement, text-based medium was used to spread the word.

The Future is man made site (produced by Digital Eskimo for WWF-Australia) is primarily text based (there’s still plenty of imagery, but the core content is text) because it is aiming to be "the next step" once someone has decided they want to make a change. Therefore a lot more detail is provided - the visual symbolism of the broader Future is man made campaign created a degree of interest, but the site supports that initial campaign for longer, lasting change.

Regardless of the form, though, involving community and leveraging the network are critical components to spreading a campaign message. This may be as simple as adding a "send to a friend" function, a campaign target counter (so people can see how their individual action is part of a bigger movement), to encouraging people posting to their blogs and MySpace (and providing site-badges/banners to make this as easy as possible) or creating a specific social network site of your own.

OR:

The way we access the internet is beginning to change, now many people are able to shop online and check email from their mobile phones. Do you see this improving accessibility to the internet? Do you think it could be useful for establishing social networks? What other devices/interfaces to access the internet do you think would benefit a (real world) society?

GY:

I think we are going to see a growing number of new ways to access the online world. Mobile phones and convergent devices (like video iPods, the iPhone, PVRs like Tivo and Apple TV) are all changing the way we interact with media, communications and the internet.

Unfortunately at the moment the experience of accessing the internet through phones (and the phone networks) is far from usable. Limited screen size, navigation and data input issues, ridiculously expensive phone network data charges are all inhibiting the usefulness of mobile devices for internet access.

Mobile devices, in general, have revolutionised how we communicate though. So if you take out the "internet" component of your question, and think of "online" instead, mobile devices have a massive role to play. SMS is a social networking tool. Even more so in countries throughout Asia and in some developing countries where the mobile infrastructure is more advanced than traditional landline infrastructure. The Phillipines is a prime example of how SMS is changing society - it plays a fundamental role in the political and social process there [Ethan Zuckerman has more on SMS and politics at MobileActive.org].

Mobile specific interfaces are going to become more and more prevalent - where the designs and techniques used are specifically accommodating the limitations of mobile devices, but also leveraging their benefits - namely mobility and location awareness (through GPS etc.).