Designing for the Neglected

This interesting post from Amy Shaw in World Changing about an exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt museum [2 East 91st Street, May 4-Sep 23] on designing for the 90% of people who are so poor that nothing much is designed for them:

This summer the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum is featuring an ambitious and refreshingly different kind of design exhibition: Design for the Other 90%. The show features ingenious yet low-cost functional objects that, according to the museum, highlight “the growing trend among designers to develop solutions that address basic needs for the vast majority of the world’s population not traditionally serviced by professional designers.”

"Well arranged in the museum’s magnificent garden, Design for the Other 90% treats the viewer to one good idea after another..."

Focusing on products designed for use by very deprived people of the world, the exhibition opens ours eyes to how simple products can change a way of life

Such as solar flashlights which can deliver much-needed light to "the 2 billion people in the world [who] are without access to affordable, reliable light after the sun sets."

Or this very interesting product, the LifeStraw, which delivers clean drinking water in the simplest possible way. "proven to be effective against waterborne diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhea" [image from peoplesdesignaward],

From the exhibition website:

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.” —Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises.