A Matter of Design. That’s when it hit me: “giving back” for older persons is fundamentally a matter of design. And not only that, I realized that what changemakers do—especially the three planning tasks—making the map, minding the gaps and building the app—is pretty much what designers do—what they call “the brief.”
Map making is akin to the designer’s quest to answer the question: Is a design “desirable”? That is, does it make sense “to those utilizing the new design.” Gap-minding is akin to the designer’s quest to answer the question: Is it feasible? That is, can the design be made functional in the foreseeable future. And finally, there is, of course the matter of building the app, which is akin to the designer’s question, “Is it viable? That is, can it be positioned in the marketplace to become a sustainable business model?