Return On Investment. It's something almost never even whispered in the design world. What if it were? What if we could actually articulate the return on an investment in design for any given project? My utopian hope is that we would finally understand what things in this world are worth investing in design. Maybe we'd start designing bigger solutions to bigger problems not solely out of altruism, but because it's the most cost effective.The Copenhagen Consensus has initiated that very process, prioritizing the world's problems by ROI, and the results are remarkable. Investing in the control of climate change and other environmental crises yields the lowest ROI while dealing with the spread of diseases which have known cures yields the highest ROI.
Of course, with respect to design, this raises a multitude of issues. How we derive value from design goes beyond monetary and enters into regions highly personal and wholey immeasurable. So the ROI of design seems dependent on its ability to all three. This, of course, makes design a very high risk investment.
I'm not sure I have any answers for this yet. What I am coming to realize, though, is design severely diminishes in value when it only focuses on either measurable or immeasurable value. For example, I would say the Ikea Effect illustrates a focus only on the immeasurable, relying on the emotional response of a strong visual to create the perception of high ROI while ignoring the measurable value of durability.
