Design x Julita Bhagat
Design Research Lead at ARK Africa
Illustration by Bonnie Kate Wolf
Interview conducted by Lewis Ngugi on August 19, 2021
To kick things off, tell us about yourself.
I’m Julita Bhagat. I am Kenyan, raised in Nairobi. I am an impact designer. I freelance and have a permanent position being the Research Lead at ARK Africa.
How has the journey been like becoming a designer?
My journey has been very organic. When I was in school, design was not considered a career. It was more of a hobby. Because of that, the education system itself didn’t separate arts, crafts, and design. There was a limitation to what I thought I could do or be as a designer, and it reflected in my exposure and the people around me. I have been creative since I was young, so I went for the first thing that I was exposed to as a design career that would “put food on the table,” which was interior design and interior architecture. Architecture felt more like physics and math, so I leaned into interior architecture.
I started practicing interior design and interior architecture and quickly learned that there was no market for local Kenyan-made designs, which were a part of why I pursued interior design in the first place. Back in the early 2000s, all the clients I had wanted big leather couches with an Italian style. I thought maybe it was time to craft a niche market. It’s not that local furniture didn’t exist—people just didn’t want to buy it. I sought out to understand that and quickly I found out that the quality of the furniture wasn’t good. When you look at the situation back in the homes of the artisans who made furniture, most of them were from informal settlements. They had bills to pay. They didn’t have the time to make one quality chair when they could sell five chairs despite forfeiting a repeat client.
From there, my desire for impact design grew. I started learning about how to ask the right questions, and how to solve such problems together. Later on, I started teaching photography in Kibera to get a better understanding or context of social exclusion
I started reading about human-centered design and soon after met Tosh Juma, the current MD of IDEO.org Nairobi. Not long after that, he founded an impact design school and all they needed for me was a one-year commitment. I began studying. I was blown away by the capacity that design has in changing lives and including the people who are trying to solve it in the process. I keep saying the word “impact design”—what I mean is I’ve been practicing product design, service design, and creative strategy, with a human-centered design approach which I apply to any project that will lead to improving quality of life in one way or the other for someone else.
How did you end up focusing on sustainability?
I see a lot of challenges around myself and around the people I care about every day. That’s the nature of being in Nairobi. It’s very diverse, and the socioeconomic classes are very obvious when you look around. It is bothersome. I’m very uncomfortable with the fact that this is what life is, that it is considered normal, that I can walk by and cross the street while someone’s on the floor, begging me for food. That discomfort has made me stay and remain focused on working on sustainability or impact.
Could you elaborate a bit more about what exactly an impact designer does?
I feel like “impact design” is another newly coined word for saying “good design.” It’s existed for a long time and the more relatable term can be “second-order thinking.” If anyone has created with second-order thinking in place, they’ve probably designed for impact as well. You can be a product designer or a graphic designer, and still have an impact. As long as what you’re doing does not build on existing problems or create new problems.
What does it mean to make a product or service good and have a lasting impact?
I’ll answer that with an example. Right now, global warming is one of the biggest challenges we are facing as a generation. Creatives in the circular economy are impact designers. Look at the healthcare industry. Anybody who’s making it more accessible to people who can’t afford it is assisting with impact design. This is the good or the positive outcome of the work that we do as impact designers—meeting accessibility standards, reducing SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) challenges, etc.
I make it sound intense, but it can be an easy thing as well. I say “easy,” but it’s not easy. Think about simple frustrations like Norman’s door. If your work is going to induce the efficiency of the whole building, then you’ve probably helped a lot of people.
Going back to your background in interior design and interior architecture, how has it impacted your perspective as an impact designer? How does it also help you make design decisions?
That’s a good question. I feel the skills I developed while practicing interior design and interior architecture were very spatial and service-oriented. The nature of the job meant I needed to be able to connect flows. For example, in a house, it would be how people move between the kitchen, the sitting room, and the bathroom. That background has helped me put things together a lot clearer and at the same time, to have a double lens of how these different factors or attributes of a certain project or topic work together to overlay on each other. I’m able to connect different spaces, services, or topics much faster than I would if I didn’t have my background in interior design and interior architecture.
How has your experience been working in different disciplines in design?
The biggest highlight is that I’ve learned the power of collaboration across all sectors of design and the industries I have worked across. I find that the more people collaborate, the more you involve the relevant stakeholders, the more impact you’re able to have, because then it’s a functioning tool for different needs. You’re able to create something for different needs through one platform.
How has your experience been in terms of incorporating sustainability into commercial projects that you’ve worked on?
Another good question. At the end of the day, every business wants a return on investment, so one of the struggles that impact designers or anyone trying to create solutions for impact has, is building those business aspects into the products or services. You also have to understand business development, inputs and outputs, the whole business model, how to define and create them. I think that’s the overlay. The more experience you gain in this industry, the more you learn that it is directly correlated to business education as well.
I’ll include policy there. Design doesn’t live in isolation. It has to work with all the other aspects of today’s world. Today, we can no longer substitute one thing for the other, meaning we should include monetary value and include the policies that exist for where you’re creating, into the work that you do.
“It has to work with all the other aspects of today’s world.”
Why do you think it’s important for designers to consider business models when designing more for impact?
Again, I’ll refer to how things have worked for the longest time. The value of having to include business models is purely the sustainability of it. The previous approach was reliance on donor funding to solve a problem. That has led to stakeholders where the problem is experienced believing or acting as though it’s somebody else’s responsibility to find all possible solutions. So often, we haven’t tried to be part of solving our challenges for ourselves. We are leaving problem solving to external parties, and thus, when they are no longer involved, our challenge–solution area is left as far as they have reached. It’s like the African saying, “The one who wears the shoe knows where it pinches most.” That’s one of the challenges that come out of not having sustainable models, and why people need to include business education in the design that they do. It’s to keep it sustainable and so that the solution keeps evolving and we can have room to move into solving something else.
My example, which I’ve been talking about a lot lately, is WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene). In the wake of COVID, I have observed that something that was being solved 30 years ago in Kibera has been addressed significantly in less than a year. It’s not completely solved, but this is the most visible headway that has been made, introducing water tanks. The simple handwashing stations not only reduced the infections of COVID, but it reduced so many other hygiene-related diseases. At the end of the day, I keep asking myself, if this began 20 years ago and we calculated how much funding has gone into WASH in one location like Kibera, could we have been further along using those same funds in different sectors or different challenges within the same sector? If we’re able to think about the business approach of why we’re doing what we’re doing and include that in the solutions we create—then we can spend more resources solving other challenges. I’m not assuming that it is as easy as said. However, it feels like a key step being taken now to include business modelling in the design process for sustainability.
How should designers pick the right problems and measure impact?
That’s a tricky one, simply because as consulting designers we don’t employ ourselves to solve problems. To me, picking the right problem is about having the right problem statement. Very much an HCD approach to how we frame the challenges we are trying to solve.
What I try my best to achieve in every project I work on, is to hold myself accountable so I can measure impact. As a design researcher, I’m the last mile between where the funding comes from and the person I’m solving for. And that trail itself is quite long because big research organizations will tell funders or philanthropists where the problem is. The funders will distribute their finances to smaller organizations, who again will redistribute it to the smallest organizations, startups, and whatnot, who eventually in the long line come down to the designers. Along this thread everybody has their own objective, hence whom they are accountable to. As designers, when we are not accountable to the people we are designing for, it’s harder to measure the impact.
“As a design researcher, I’m the last mile between where the funding comes from and the person I’m solving for.”
My objective is to see change, so I follow up. I’m still talking to clients I worked with five years ago and asking, “Hey, this is what we were working on. How’s it going?” In the cases where we delivered tangible products or services, measuring impact is directly related to how they are being used. Sometimes I find the company objectives are switched so some projects are left hanging. I try to remain accountable by asking to continue the project or to introduce like-minded organizations to share learned insights, and try to build more collaboration. I think as a consulting design researcher, the impact of our work is less visible when the last output we give a client is a report.
Is there a particular project that you’re involved in, in terms of impact design, that you’re particularly proud of or another that has also impacted you? (No pun intended.)
I’ve enjoyed a lot of the projects that I’ve worked on, but the one with the most impact on me made me question why I design. It was a project we did on improving hospital services in Kisumu. The client wanted a digital solution to improve healthcare in Kisumu. They had already come in with assumptions like “How can tech help with the hospital lines?” or “How can we improve prescription for medicine?” And when we got there, everyone—the patients and doctors and nurses, the whole ecosystem—only spoke about HIV.
I was quite a young impact designer at that time, on my third or fourth project. I was having very deep discussions about HIV with patients as young as 15 years old, and finding myself trying to push a digital product on them but seeing very clearly that that’s not what was needed. I think that has been the most heartfelt project I have been on. At the end of it, I couldn’t break the line between empathy and sympathy, and I was confused about who I was responsible to. My emotions were all over the place, it is also the project that has made me the designer that I am today.
What do you think are the key skills or qualities needed to be a successful and effective impact designer, especially in emerging markets?
There are three key skills I am still learning every day.
One, you have to have an open mind and heart. I can tell you the number of times I have not delivered, and it breaks me. On one hand, I’m like a hope dealer. This means I’ve gone and interacted with—I don’t like using this word, but it’s best suited—research participants. I’ve interacted with people and I’ve given them hope. They believe that I know somebody is doing something about this challenge they’re experiencing. And then I go back, and the client is very unhappy with what I’ve done. This means that the research participants don’t get whatever solutions we’ve co-created, and that’s a blow. So I think that openness, to knowing that I will fail, is key. I have to be willing to fail, and I have to be open to knowing that not every challenge has a solution we, the team, will develop.
Two, I have to be multidisciplinary. The number of dots I have to connect in impact design are so many. It’s not the product or the service—it’s the product, the service, the industry, the policy, the finance, and all the aspects that have to work together for us to deliver a viable, desirable, and feasible possible solution. On one hand, focus and sharpening one skill is vital, but so is understanding the ecosystem well enough in its ever-evolving state.
Three is empathy. This goes without saying for anyone who’s done human-centered design, so I don’t need to be repetitive about the need to have empathy. But I do want to stress that there’s a huge difference between sympathy and empathy. Empathy is what I need, to be able to put myself in someone else’s place. Sympathy creates more problems. Sympathy often creates emotional reactions because it’s based on my feelings for someone’s experience. Learning that, I can be sympathetic when I’m not in the field and feel my emotions. But if I’m in an interview and feeling sympathetic, my emotion towards a situation may project, and I may lose focus, being susceptible to deflecting or not being present in the moment I am supposed to be in.
For example, once in an interview we spoke to a lady who broke down in tears narrating her experience for a project. The awareness between sympathy and empathy allowed us, the designers, to recognize space for a break, a moment to find out how she was outside of the interview, and her a moment to reconfirm if this was something she wanted to be a part of. It was a unique moment that connected me to her but also to the project because I certainly felt more of what I was tasked to deliver on her part as much as for the project objective as well.
What advice do you have for designers looking to pursue sustainability or working on their social impact-related design?
Stick with it. That’s my number one piece of advice. Keep going and know why you’re going. It’s the power of answering the “why,” whatever you do—if it’s in the project itself, or if you’re choosing this career. Constantly evaluate your “why” to figure out why you wake up to do this, why you’re working on certain projects. And if you can answer your “why” clearly, then trust your instinct and you’ll be on the right path.
How do I test my “why”?
I do meditate, but I do more self-evaluation processes. So I learned about this a while back, and it’s called the “personal development plan.” Every six months to a year, depending on how my schedule is looking, I sit down, and the same way I would do for a project, I do a SWOT analysis. I kind of go through a whole session with myself asking questions like “Why am I acting like this? Why am I waking up at this time? Why am I choosing x? Why am I choosing this same approach over that approach?” Whatever it may be, I keep asking myself why, why, why, and I compare it to the past two to three years. Whenever I see my “why” is changing drastically, then I know it’s time for me to reevaluate my approach to work. Maybe it’s even time for a career change or simply time for a break from a sector. I want to love what I do and do what I love so If I stick with it and I know my “why,” I hope to stay able to make a change. Right now, I want to learn more about policy and this is because I’m answering my “whys.” And my “why” is I’m not delivering the impact that I desire to, yet.
Tell me a little bit about policy in regards to impact design.
Another wicked one. Impact design often deals with wicked problems. The best example right now is the circular economy, which has become a very big topic. Many people are trying to recycle plastics, but the taxes that have been put on importing the machinery is so high that already more than half have dropped out of wanting to build businesses in recycling plastics. And then suddenly, the cost of registering a company for recycling plastics has also increased. So this is where you need policymakers to work with the recyclers or manufacturers, to team up and create the right policies around the circular economy to develop the industry.
How have you been able to convey the importance, especially to your fellow designers, researchers, engineers, of thinking about social impact in their work?
I think I’m super passionate about it, so I hope so. Even when I’m hanging out with my friends or my family, I care about it so much that the conversation will come up. We’ll be eating pineapple, and randomly I’ll get up and say, “Hey, did you know that you can grow another pineapple from the crown?” Or my never-dying advocacy for littering properly. It’s not only passion—it’s a way of life. I’m doing my best to live a very impactful and positive life that the people around me start picking it up themselves. I’m surrounding myself with like-minded people, and I talk about it all the time. I try to live it. I am constantly reading and educating myself on how I can do better and I’m hoping that that rubs off more on me and on the people around me.
What do you believe are some of the challenges that designers and researchers are facing?
I believe accountability is one of the biggest challenges we face. I do think that there’s a lot more creatives and designers and even companies themselves who want to deliver this impact. But everyone has to be accountable for the return on investment. So that’s one big challenge.
Another is that the industry is continuously changing rapidly. COVID has exasperated the speed at which these changes are happening because now we live in a much more digital world. A lot of skills are being created or new talents are being needed. So not only do you have to constantly be on the job, but you constantly have to be updating. For any designer right now who has only one skill, if you say you’re only a graphic designer, you have to be the top-notch graphic designer for you to get away with still being in a job. Otherwise, you have to be a graphic designer, you have to understand UX, you have to understand UI. Just that rapid and fast adjustment. The education being provided right now is apt and fitting, but time is almost another constraint because you’re doing your job and you have to update your skills.
I don’t think this is a new challenge, but we still live in a world where we’re explaining the value of design. Let’s look at cities that are built accessible, like London. Where I’m from, if a deaf person’s alone, they don’t have accessibility in hospitals. You have maybe one person, if you’re lucky, who signs in hospitals. Then you look at cities like London where they have Braille on the street. Explaining the value of design and incorporating it into our lifestyles is still a big challenge for many.
What is some advice you will give aspiring designers?
I think this is a life policy, “Do what makes you happy.” Remember to have fun. Remember to do your “whys.”
Stay updated. I think designers have to stay up to date with the news. You have to know what’s happening. You have to stay current because when you design you’re designing for the people around you for what they are experiencing, for what they are feeling. Stay current, so that you know what you’re doing and what you’re working towards.
I’d also say try your best to incorporate second-order thinking. Not only is it important to stay current, but if you’re the one who’s gonna create the next plastic bottle, please be the one who also figures out what happens after it’s been used.
Understand the role of designers. A lot of the time we get stuck on having to deliver the next step. Often, by the time a client or someone has come to you with work, they expect you to know everything. But if you consider your role as a facilitator, then you will remember that it’s about the collaborative process. You don’t have to come up with the solutions. You have to put enough room or enough capacity out there for everybody involved to solve the problem together.
Who or what has helped influence you to become the impact designer you are today?
I’ll start with “what.” I think my biggest influence has always been the challenges I see around me and, at the same time, hearing the people around me solve these challenges for themselves. It sounds quirky, but a lot of the time you’ll see somebody have a door break, and less than three minutes in, they’ve found a stick, picked it up, pushed it through a certain corner, did something, and the solution looks quite basic, quite simple. So I always get inspired by watching everyday solutions being created and everyday challenges being faced.
For the “who,” I’ve been very fortunate to work with. From my Nairobi Design Institute cohort, there’s Sharon Wangari, who’s always inspired me. I’ve worked with Kirui Kennedy, the whole ARK Africa team. I get inspired by the teams I work with. I’ve worked with Proportion Global and Brave Ventures and there’s a long list of people I’ve worked with. The reason I get inspired by these people is that I constantly learn something new. So it’s not only the organizations, it’s also the people I’m solving with, or the participants. I’m a sponge. I like to be observant and when people around me are doing things, I constantly feel like this is what I should be doing.
In Kenya, while you were teaching photography to children in informal settlements, what was the experience like? What did you learn from that experience?
Oh, wow, that brings back good memories. I was a volunteer with Photo Start, and the biggest lesson I will always take from this—which I think should be applied to many of the projects I do—is, “We are a sum of our experiences.” You can only do what you know or what you’ve been exposed to. Listening to the children that I was teaching and watching how they interacted with different nationalities and with different social classes, I could see a lot of where our mentalities are shaped. For example, one thing I learned, which is very sad, is this perception that certain luxuries in life are for certain people and that’s because that’s all the children have ever been exposed to. They see big nice cars on TV, with certain people to believe, “That’s for them, not for us. I don’t deserve this.” I take that with me everywhere I go.
The other was determination. Being there to see how the less you know, the better you’ll be at learning it. I was the one teaching the children photography, and they ended up teaching me in less than weeks. I went in with “This is how it should be done. This is the structure of what a photograph should look like,” but they had fun, they took it very lightly, and the work that they did was so incredible because it came more from the heart than from the structure or the mind’s direction. So I try to put that in the work that I do.
What question haven’t I asked you that I should have?
“Where do you see the future of design in Africa?”
The future of design for Africa is defined by Africans. This is a conversation that I feel should be bigger than it currently is. You can see a lot of Afrofuturism coming out in more than apps and creative parts of design. As an impact designer, it’s a great and empowering and incredible experience, being able to use all these tools that we’ve learned in our careers. If you’re in our world, you know about the IDEOs, the Frogs, and all these workshops and things, and that’s great—we should use it. But I also think we should start to decolonize how these structures have been built and start working from the ground up. There’s a lot of lessons we can learn from our own culture and our problem solving that should influence where design goes.
“…we should start to decolonize how these structures have been built and start working from the ground up.”
An interesting case study for this is just looking at material design for consumer goods. We still have porters, we still use clay, we still use raffia or makuti, grass. There are so many materials that you can use and deconstruct how gentrification has been built. We are one of the fortunate continents to still have a lot of green, and it hasn’t been very industrialized, per se. I’m not saying industrialization is wrong—I’m saying we should be very conscious to make sure that we don’t miss out on the good that we have, trying to catch up with the rest of the world. We should learn from everyone’s lessons, including our own.
Rapid Fire Questions:
What’s your favorite thing to do in your free time?
Watching cartoons, anime to be specific.
What’s the book that you’re reading right now?
Three Cups of Tea.
What podcast are you currently listening to?
MBL. It’s a new Kenyan podcast that talks about business. Very interesting.
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Chilled-out, deep (intense). I don’t know. I don’t think about myself that much. Fun-loving? I think I am bubbly.
