A design evaluation framework for developing communities

In the field of design within developing communities, a significant need exists to look beyond providing aid, to produce designs that create long term benefits for the community, facilitating empowerment and self-sustainment. Despite a growing range of literature within this field, there are currently no tools, methods or approaches that adequately address this need. A shortcoming that is addressed within this paper by exploring the criteria required within such an undertaking, and proposing an evaluation framework to aid designers. Through an experimental study, the framework was assessed in its potential to aid both the concept generation and concept evaluation process. Results indicate that designers were able to generate more suitable concept solutions, and demonstrated a greater understanding of the long term impacts of the solution on the community through the use of the proposed framework.