The question of how to effectively design products for consumers in the developing world has been widely debated. Several methodologies have been developed to address this issue focusing on human centered and community centered methods, but few methods are rooted in market-centered approaches. Recent advances in market-centered design from lean startup methodologies hold promise for the development of new methods that allow effective product design for consumers in the developing world. This paper contributes a method from which consumer level products can be designed to effectively supply the under-served markets of the developing world with innovative and sustainable solutions. Utilizing an iterative method based on three fundamental hypotheses, the Lean Design for Developing World Method (LDW) seeks to provide products that are economically viable, have strong market growth potential, and have a net positive impact on the customers and their communities.

Current methods for design in the developing world rely on many tools that are used in standard product and system design. Design for the developing world methods, such as Human Centered Design or co-design, often use a user-centered method yet advise the use of design tools developed for use in a market-centered approach. Recent advances in market-centered design from lean startup methodologies and decision-based design hold promise for the development of new methods that allow effective product design for consumers in the developing world. The Lean Design for the Developing World method (LDW) is an iterative method that is based upon three fundamental hypotheses including the growth hypothesis, the value hypothesis, and the impact hypothesis. LDW seeks to provide products for under-served markets of the developing world that are economically viable, have strong market growth potential, and have a net positive impact on the customers and their communities. This paper contributes a novel detailed method to collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data for the LDW. To enable effective decision making and design tradeoff decision-making in the LDW, effective accounting and gathering of feedback data is vital.