Student Voices: Using Human-Centered Design to Improve the Durham Farmers' Market

I came to Sanford with what I had considered an empowering belief that human beings were the agents of change, capable of creating solutions to society's most pressing challenges. This was my starting point, my initial "user perspective," if you will.

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However, the more I invested in this program, the more my assumptions were productively challenged. I started to realize that the framing of this challenge was too narrow. I had been thinking about change as a solely human endeavor when, in fact, we are part of a much larger, interconnected system.

This was my keystone "empathy insight" - I needed to expand my definition of who and what we design for.

What finally made that breakthrough possible for me was recognizing that effective social change is about reimagining how we might create solutions that resonate with people’s lived experiences and everyday realities.

During the fall semester, I took a Human-Centered Design” (HCD) class. This experience has fundamentally reshaped my paradigm for solving complex societal challenges and policy matters.

At its core, HCD is about problem-solving, centered around people. It requires a deep level of empathy, iterative solution development, and collaborative innovation. In contrast to traditional approaches to policy, which generally start theorizing from a framework, HCD starts with trying to understand the lived experiences of those whom the issues we are trying to solve affect.

Real-World Consulting

What truly made this class rewarding has been applying the principles of HCD as a student policy consultant for the Durham Farmers' Market.

Our team realized that the market was more than a place to shop but also an important "third space" where community members meet, interact, and forge relationships.

This led to the development of creative policies aimed at increasing fresh produce sales while maintaining and enhancing the market's role as a community gathering place. The process showed how HCD can turn traditional spaces into dynamic community assets, all while supporting local agriculture and food access.

Traditional policymaking is often ill-equipped to craft solutions that resonate with community needs. HCD bridges this gap by ensuring policies reflect real user experiences and needs, reduces the risk of implementation failure and creates more inclusive solutions. This collaborative approach builds trust between policymakers and communities.

Design Thinking

My passion for human-centered approaches has inspired me to further expand my skills. This semester, I am taking the course Challenges and Strategy in Design Thinking at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Human-centeredness must be expressed in devising solutions that are suitably proposed and implemented by the communities themselves.

The course serves as a bridge between timeless design principles and the complex landscape of public policy innovation. What interests me most is how the inquiry into enduring designs versus those that have failed offers important lessons to build resilient policies that truly serve their intended communities.

Looking at cases of major investments that led to spectacular failures, I think of well-meaning policies not very well thought out in terms of the needs of their users or how they would work in the real world. Directly parallel to this, the emphasis of this course on navigating multiple priorities and regulatory requirements draws parallels with the intricate balancing act required in policy design: harmonizing legal frameworks, stakeholder interests, and societal needs while ensuring accessibility and equity.

The findings on how successful designs rise to the level of "household names" are instructive for the lessons of policy innovation. It incentivizes developing policies that work in both effective and deep-set ways within the communities they serve, and thus are more likely to be adopted and sustained over time. These strategies that we are learning to support excellence in design thinking really help me to frame - in innovation, pragmatism, and yet deep rootedness in human needs and experiences, the way I go about policy development.

The intersection of public policy, engineering management and human-centered design is the perfect platform to design meaningful change. With the increasingly complex challenges we face globally, I believe this approach will be essential in formulating answers that truly work for people and the planet.

Kanishka Desai, MPP’26, is born and raised in Gujarat, India. She pursued her bachelor’s degree in English literature and philosophy, and what caught her attention was the disconnect between theories of change and their practical implementation. This realization sparked her interest in public policy, leading her to pursue a master’s degree at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. She believes that certain policies can make or break people’s lives. Kanishka is a deep lover of humanities and is deeply connected to Indian cultural arts, holding degrees in both Indian classical dance and classical music. That’s where her passion for bridging analytical abilities with creative expression comes from.