Melinda Gates on the power of human-centered design

Interesting quote from a Wired interview with Melinda Gates and Paul Farmer:

WIRED: What innovation do you think is changing the most lives in the developing world?
MELINDA GATES: Human-centered design. Meeting people where they are and really taking their needs and feedback into account. When you let people participate in the design process, you find that they often have ingenious ideas about what would really help them. And it’s not a onetime thing; it’s an iterative process.

How does that work in practice?
PAUL FARMER: In Haiti I would see people sleeping outside the hospital with their donkey saddle under their neck — they’d been waiting there for days. And no one was asking them, “What are you eating while you’re waiting? What is your family eating while you’re gone?” We have to design a health delivery system by actually talking to people and asking, “What would make this service better for you?” As soon as you start asking, you get a flood of answers.