This report describes the results of a thesis commissioned by Proportion, a global design agency, situated in Amsterdam. Proportion aims to innovate for social impact by applying the human-centred design approach to current problems in society (proportion.global). One of the challenges Proportion wants to tackle is youth unemployment in Kenya. There are two parties connected to this challenge of youth unemployment within this graduation project. Firstly, there is a significant problem of youth unemployment in Kenya. This problem was addressed by Proportion, whereby they want to explore possible interventions against this unemployment. Secondly, social businesses in Kenya aim to create employment. Therefore, this graduation project seeks to redefine the relationship between social businesses and young professionals in Kenya, tackling the problem of youth unemployment. To be able to redefine the relationship between social businesses and young professionals, in-depth context research was required. This context exploration consisted of desk and field research with social entrepreneurs and inspiring youth alike. Additionally, creative sessions with Kenyan youth and social business owners were carried out. The qualitative information was used to identify the challenges of the current situation of youth unemployment. Furthermore, this helped to gain insights into the desired condition for both social businesses and young professionals. This qualitative research resulted in three problem areas of youth unemployment; the challenge of personal identity, the difficulty of what journey to take in life and the gap between theory and practice. These problem areas are linked to three opportunity areas: identifying the capabilities of the youth, creating an open company culture and providing mentorship. These opportunity areas, which were derived from identified problems, created a frame of reference for the future relationship between social businesses and young professionals. This frame of reference initiated secondary literature research on employee engagement. The findings of the theory on employee engagement led to an adapted diagram of the employee performance pyramid (Stum, 2011). Several levels need to be fulfilled to create employee engagement. These are the following in chronological order; rewards, comfort, collaboration, relations and growth. The designed concept needs to incorporate these levels to create a relationship between social enterprises and young professionals where engagement is enhanced. The findings of the research resulted in a strategic framework, in the form of a future vision on the relationship between social businesses and young professionals. It indicates the boundaries of the solution space and future developments. The future vision describes a collaborative working environment, where support and involvement for every individual are essential. Moreover, personal and organisational development is established by creating independent goals and future expectations for the company and youth alike. The final creative capacity-building concept (CCB-concept), is a solution within this framework. It supports social businesses in their employees’ journey, specifically in the onboarding process of young professionals. The CCB-concept bridges the gap between social enterprises and young professionals in Kenya by identifying the skills and goals of the employees and translating them into personal performance journeys. The proposed concept comprises three steps: an experience workshop, a reflective moment, and a group reflection and planning. It relies on a cycle of action, reflection and planning (Kolb, 1984). Through collaboration and creative capacity-building, the CCB-concept aims for better personal and organisational development. In this way, it enhances the relationship between social businesses and young professionals in Kenya. It is recommended to do a pilot test of the proposed concept in Kenya to evaluate the feasibility, viability and desirability. Furthermore, it is suggested to explore the several service packages. Lastly, a partner able to financially fund the project for early implementation is recommended.

In this thesis, the value of design is researched within the context of municipalities and how civil servants deal with complex problems. Loneliness amongst adolescents is a complex problem that many are not aware of yet. Of the youth between 12 and 18 years old in Delft, 42% states to feel lonely (GGD Haaglanden, 2016). This issue needs to be addressed by Team Youth of Gemeente Delft. However, the civil servants and their partners do not act upon it. This led to the following research question of this project: “Will a design-led approach enable the civil servants of Team Youth from Gemeente Delft to act upon the complex problem of loneliness amongst adolescents in Delft together with other relevant actors?” First, three sub-questions were posed to find out what the design-led approach should consist of. They were answered through literature and field research. The first question addressed systemic design and showed that such an approach allows different actors to collaborate to find a mutual understanding of a situation. This enables the actors to create and follow a shared vision, for which interventions can be developed. The second sub-question gave insight into the current situation of loneliness amongst adolescents in Delft. A causal system map was created, which revealed six interconnected root causes that give a subjective explanation of why the problem is as it is. When researching why Team Youth currently does not act upon this situation, it was found that the policy implementation process is not performed optimally. This process was researched, and four areas of improvement were found. The involvement of unvaried parties, a consultative role of the civil servant, a conventional approach and an undefined structure of the process counteract when dealing with complexity. The third sub-question concerned the research of design principles that might improve or enrich these four areas. Co-design was discussed, which demands a collaborative role and the use of participatory techniques. To create one structured process that focuses on dealing with complexity and creating mutual understanding, the Systemic Design Toolkit process was mentioned. The insights and design principles from the research were translated into requirements for the design-led approach that would be set up. A research through design process followed, in which a systemic co-design process with four phases was set up, performed and researched. First, a network and co-creation team was built. Next, two co-creation sessions took place to explore the problem field and solution space. In the last phase, the results were discussed with Team Youth, which led to a defined action for the policy implementation plan. With the insights and results from the process, and help from actors in the network, the assigned actor was able to enact the action and develop an intervention. The research and evaluation of the performed process resulted in an adjusted list of requirements on which the final proposal is based: the WIJ-model (Welzijn Implementatie Jeugd model). This systemic co-design process enables civil servants to act upon complex problems during the policy implementation phase and implement well-being amongst the youth of Delft.

In the last decade, an increasing amount of people has become aware of the negative impact their behaviour has on the environment. However, most consumers are not aware of the negative environmental impact of the products they purchase and possess. Research has been done on different aspects of products for a circular economy, such as product longevity, and on the purchase process but mostly for marketing reasons instead of sustainability. Research has also been done on the gap between intention and behaviour of sustainability minded people. This research presents barriers, but no research was found on translating these barriers into solutions. Little was found in literature about making appropriate sustainable buying decisions. The main objective of this thesis is to stimulate consumers to exclusively purchase products with long-term psychological value, with the ultimate goal of reducing the ecological footprint of the consumers. In the first part of this research the characteristics of personal long-term value of products are identified. Data for this study is obtained through ten in-depth interviews and literature review. The second part of this research aims to identify how the purchase behaviour could be changed and which factors influence the purchase behaviour. This part contains a literature review and utilises the research through design method, in which five different prototypes are tested. The third part of this thesis translates this new theory into practice. Three new prototypes are developed, which should together affect the change in purchase behaviour. These products are validated with five participants over three weeks. The results of the interviews show three categories of psychological long-term product value: products that carry memories, products that satisfy basic needs and products which enable human goals. These last two categories complement each other. The research on behavioural change shows that the human goals should be discovered first, which results in a personal set of long-term product values. Next, consumers have to be reminded of their values during the purchase process. Finally, sufficient commitment should be created to resist the products that do not fit the personal set of long-term product values. For this, a game is proposed to raise awareness and discover this personal set of long-term product values. This game enables the consumer to train the reasoning behind the desire for products. The validation test showed that the game is successful in creating awareness and in training consumers to reason about products with personal long-term product value. To make the consumer remember their set of personal long-term product values in the purchase process, two reminders are proposed: the ‘Product Calendar’, and a sticker set ‘Stick to your values’. These designs remind the consumer of their long-term product values, translate the game into real life and create commitment. In conclusion, this project enables designers to understand long-term psychological product value, gives them a framework to design for purchase behavioural change, and the designs of this project enable consumers to make more sustainable purchase decisions.

The domain of Sustainable Development innovation is facing a significant transformation. Several trends, social, political, economical forces and players are concurring in the rise the concept of impact on sustainable development challenges. That is being introduces in the strategies of big and small enterprises, at different degrees, varying from innovations along the value chain to small adaptive tactics keeping the pace with the latest governmental regulation in matters of emissions reductions, workforce welfare etc.
Moreover, a growing number of emerging startups already include sustainable development challenges in their DNA as a main mission -often called Impact Startups. However, being hybrids with ambitious impact change goals and financial sustainability needs, they often struggle to survive and develop models of impact. In this context, BMI Lab is a consultancy supporting organisations with business model innovation. The current process does not account for ‘impact drivers’ in the equation for business model generation, therefore does not have the capabilities to support impact startups, and will need to evolve to do so. The project arouse from the knowledge gap of including Sustainable Development Impact as an additional driver in business model generation.
The aim is to provide a strategic design angle to complement the Business Model Design Sprint, based on an explorative approach over the impact factors and challenges in achieving impact models. First, the concept of impact model is defined, then based on field immersion, impact entrepreneurs and experts stories and interviews, and academic sources, the research identifies a set of critical activities that could positively influence the development of impact models. Those have been embedded in a toolkit. The toolkit takes place in the first day of a BMI Lab BM generation Sprint and aims at guiding through the identification of new opportunities that align SD goals and viability. It consist of four main stages focusing on the value exchanged with the ecosystem of intervention.

This MSc Design for Interaction graduation project aims to explore how design may enhance policymaking. In light of this, an extensive study was conducted at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. This study entailed an ethnographic study of nine months during which six policymaking cases were studied as well as a four month experimental study was conducted. The six policymaking cases served to identify an opportunity to enhance policymaking with design, whereas the experimental study served to further investigate this opportunity. Based on these endeavours, and in light of the identified opportunity a design intervention was developed and evaluated.
The six policymaking cases were studied from the perspective of balancing exploration and exploitation through methodological congruence; policymaking practices need to appropriately balance between utilizing existing knowledge and means - exploitation - and generating new knowledge and means - exploration - according to the determinacy of the problem at hand. However, it was found that policymaking predominantly possesses exploitative traits and, more specifically, is remarkably non-experimental. As such, it was argued that current policymaking practices may best be enhanced with experimentation throughout the policymaking process. In light of this, it was found that the systematic, deliberate way designers experiment may be helpful in policymaking as well. As opposed to policymaking, in which an experiment is typically the final piece of the problemsolving process, in design, several ‘safe to fail’ experiments serve as points of departure, initiating a progressive iterative process of working towards a solution. As such, it was found worthwhile to find a way to apply this particular way of experimenting in policymaking as well. However, this particular way of experimenting does necessitate a particular disposition that is not found in policymaking in which ideas are nipped in the bud, taking decisions is postponed, intended solutions and measures are kept abstract, there is hardly any room for intuition and making mistakes, and learning and having to change course are seen as politically risky. Hence, it was argued that the context and dynamics required for this way of experimenting may only be found outside of the political system; ‘safe to fail’ experiments may be conducted most effectively and efficiently by policy implementers themselves - that are given sufficient discretion - rather than policymakers. In order to see how this can be done, the abovementioned experimental study was conducted. This study clearly showed that these ‘safe to fail’ experiments cannot simply be delegated; it requires taking into account the commitment, capacity and capability of policy implementers to conduct ‘safe to fail’ experiments and responding accordingly.
In order to enable policymakers to do so, guidelines were developed and tested. Although the guidelines do not directly help in making policies in a more experimental manner, they do help minimize the risk associated with experiments, increase the chances of successful execution and contribute to the process of having policy implementers conduct ‘safe to fail’ experiments As such, they may help smooth the way towards making policies in a more experimental manner.