UNICEF Innocenti
Using participatory design to create tangible futures for children and youth
Strategy + Design
Informing decisions that support child rights now, and in the future
The Challenge
UNICEF Innocenti’s mission is to ‘work with and for children and young people to address their most pressing challenges’ in a wide range of areas like poverty and protection, engagement and the environment, and equity and inclusion. The global landscape and local contexts in which these challenges exist continue to shift and evolve. However what remains constant are youth, their voices, and their drive to create a future they need and want.
By elevating youth voices with all their uniqueness now, in authentic, compelling, and actionable ways, stakeholders such as UNICEF and its partner organizations can make more informed choices to shape our collective trajectory to more preferable outcomes in the future.
The Outcome
A set of materials—scenario descriptions, persona cards, and day-in-the-life narratives of a diverse group of fictionalized youth—created by young people themselves, transforms complex information to help drive decisions in the best interest of those UNICEF aims to serve.
Character-based, evidence-driven, and future-forward to the year 2050, these materials can inform decisions and inspire action in many applications, including upcoming publications with UNICEF and an exhibit designed for World Children’s Day at the Museum of the Future in Dubai.
“This initiative, developed collaboratively with Artefact, Dubai Future Foundation, and UNICEF, puts young people at the heart of reimagining the future of childhood by ensuring that their voices and perspectives directly shape the narratives we share.”
A multi-faceted approach
to understanding children’s needs
Artefact, in collaboration with UNICEF and the Dubai Future Foundation, combined participatory design methods, foresight techniques to project futures, and human-centered design principles resulting in relatable representations of children’s lives that can inform decisions on how to support them in the future.
UNICEF and the Dubai Future Foundation convened youth to engage with these methods, which were integrated into a framework called the Experiential Futures (XF) Ladder. The XF Ladder guides leaders and stakeholders through immersive and interactive steps, transforming abstract future scenarios into more tangible and understandable experiences, ultimately fostering a deeper understanding and engagement with the subject matter.
Three complementary methodologies to illuminate the future
1
Human-Centered Design ensured narratives were centered in the universal needs of children.
Need statements captured the shared, expansive needs of children in the domains of play, learning, and domestic life. These statements shaped the various narratives of children from diverse regions and led to personas that communicated their unique challenges in clear and inspiring ways.
2
Strategic Foresight revealed the future impacts of intersecting trends.
Super Wheels, an adaptation of a commonly used methodology called Future Wheels, provided a way to gather compounding effects from identified megatrends. These secondary and tertiary effects were coded under 6 categories – societal, technological, environmental, economic, political, and values. We then analyzed how these secondary and tertiary effects intersected within each scenario using causal layered analysis (CLA). This framework helped us consider headlines, systemic causes, worldviews, and metaphors for each scenario.
3
Participatory Design throughout the process centered young people’s perspectives to shape the work.
Key to the overall process were two workshops designed and facilitated by UNICEF’s Youth Foresight Fellows and involved participants from UNICEF’s Global Youth Network to develop the scenarios and day-in-the-life narratives. We structured the workshops and coached the Fellows to provide teachable moments for the youth so they were able to gain new skills from participating. In total, 50 youth participated throughout the process.
Participants from UNICEF’s Global Youth Network were divided into teams with others from their same geographic region. Each team was assigned a placemat with a child persona representative of their region and a future scenario.
Teams were tasked to describe objects in the child’s backpack and answer questions about the child’s day to provide the team with deeper insights into the objects, thoughts, and activities of the children of the future.
“I was really amazed by this initiative to allow young people around the world to express their deep knowledge about the lives and suffering of children. I acquired more experience and knowledge thanks to this workshop.”
Amplifying Impact
The actionable artifacts created by this participatory process can bring crucial visibility and advocacy for the rights and well-being of children now and in the future.
The Dubai Future Forum was first to leverage this work and raise awareness about the power of the platform. With such a prominent and forward-looking venue, the project’s message reaches a wide audience, including policymakers, educators, and the general public, inspiring action and positive change. The interactive nature of the exhibit further enhances engagement and fosters a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing children in 2050.
This increased visibility will serve to amplify the project’s impact, ensuring that the needs and interests of future generations remain at the forefront of global conversations and decision-making.
What we delivered
+ Future Scenarios
+ Personas
+ Day-In-the-Life Narratives
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