SPECIAL SECTION: DESIGN FOR WELL-BEING CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 109, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2015 1665 e-mail: mahendra.shahare@hss.iitd.ac.in Uncertainty and the capability approach to design Mahendra Shahare Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110 016, India The concept of ‘design for sustainable well-being and empowerment’ seeks to harmonize distinct ideals using the capability approach framework, of which an important element is technology. To increase the free- doms or effective capabilities of individuals, the aim is to design artefacts and technologies. However, in this article, the argument is that due to the inherent uncer- tainty such optimistic outcomes cannot always be guaranteed and technologies can fail in practice and diminish human capabilities. Design trade-off and affordance of artefacts are used here to demonstrate that the use of capability approach to design is merely a static analytical tool. Keywords: Affordance, capability approach, design, trade-off, uncertainty. Introduction THE ‘design for sustainable well-being and empower- ment’ conference which was held in June 2014 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, discussed how design can provide solutions to human development. For example, artefacts and technologies that abound everyday life and are formed through creative process of design, are closely associated with modern society’s conception of development. In general, these artefacts are developed in response to the needs (real or perceived) that arise due to dissatisfaction with a certain state of affairs. Nonethe- less there are multiple perspectives to conceptualise development in relation to technology (e.g. appropriate technology movement), and thus the same artefact or technology can appear conflicting or complementary to development goals. To explain such contradictions, the case of biomass stoves can be useful. In the 1970s, use of stoves that burn biomass (wood or organic residue) became a concern in relation to the issue of deforesta- tion 1 . International aid agencies accepted the deduction that decreased woodfuel consumption would lower down the rate of deforestation. The response to predicted catas- trophe was to disseminate at a large scale ‘improved’ fuel-efficient stoves to the ‘third world’ population. While in the late 1980s scores of ‘improved’ stoves were abandoned by users across continents, curiously at some places the ‘improved’ stoves had succeeded in reducing cooking time and thus lowered women’s unpaid labour. Since the performance of ‘improved’ stoves was meas- ured in terms of fuel consumption, energy conservation, and decrease in the rate of deforestation, its impact on well-being and quality of working conditions inside kitchen, where women routinely spend considerable time every day, was disregarded 1 . The ‘improved’ stoves were deemed unsustainable just like ‘traditional’ biomass stoves, because they had insig- nificant impact on environmental agenda, and were dubbed as a failure. As a result major donor agencies completely cut off their funding. In hindsight from the perspective of human development, clearly these judge- ments were problematic as issues of sustainability, well- being and empowerment were defined in this case on contradictory and conflicting criteria. How can design re- spond to such situations? First, is by appreciating the fact that artefacts or technologies it creates are neither neutral nor value-free. For example, despite the fact that house- hold work is a gender issue, ‘improved’ stoves were pro- moted as a technology to conserve energy rather than one that reduces domestic labour (of women). Second, by ac- knowledging that in practice a good amount of uncer- tainty is involved in regard to how technologies shape up and whether they fail or succeed. The present article de- tails out this second perspective in relation to the capabil- ity approach (CA) to design. In order to explore the issue, this article is organized into six sections. The second section briefly introduces the concept of CA to design, and the third section de- scribes the notion of uncertainty. Using the concepts of design trade-off and affordance fourth section explores the interrelationship between design and uncertainty. The fifth section discusses the relative scope and limitations of CA to design through a case study. And the final sec- tion presents a brief summary of the discussion and lists the conclusions. CA and design Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen 2 argues that in a world that we live in today, we should be dissatisfied with the ‘persistence of poverty and unfulfilled elementary needs, occurrence of famines and widespread hunger,