Soft Skills for designing in the field

One of the best way to design for people in the field is to observe how people interact with your solution or problem. Most people if asked directly about a situation, such as, ' Do you regularly use the toilet?' or " Do you practice good toilet habits?' would normally reply in the affirmative because they are reluctant to tell you their real views in front of you, especially if you are a stranger to them. Most people tend to tell you what they think you want to hear rather than what they feel or think about a particular situation or issue especially if asked directly.

Of course, the opposite is true where some people would tell you the negative just to disrupt your data or activities. Both situations can give you incorrect data that would affect the progress of your project and how you handle the issue. Thus, when testing out your model with the people on the ground, one should use other soft skills such as making observations on how people react with the issue or indirectly asking questions that would provide additional information about what you really want to find out.

Direct questions are probably not the best course of action unless you are looking for specific data such as " How many are you in the family?" and one should make use of open ended questions and in answering such questions, the respondent can sometimes provide additional information that would prove useful, so listening is an important skill to use when gathering data about a situation.

This blog is one in a series that documents the journey of Saraplast in setting up an inclusive slum sanitation venture. To read more blogs in this series, click here.