Design Thinking for Self-Help Groups

This thesis explores how Design Thinking can support product development for Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in rural India, where they are critical to women's economic and social empowerment. Research with three SGHs identifies how everyday innovation already exists within SGHs, though is often unarticulated and unrecognised. In response, a design toolkit is developed and tested with SHGs to surface their innovative and creative thinking, support collective idea development, and coordinate efforts to strengthen their product development processes. A key research contribution is the proposal for a Community-Authored Design Framework to support collective design capacity within everyday SGH production.