Thoughts
A case for Systemic Design
The need to incorporate Systems Thinking into the Design Thinking process, to address the unintended consequences of our designs. With the rise of new technologies, overpopulation, climate change, globalized economies, etc.- the systems that we are designing are increasingly more complex and interconnected. We need new, sustainable solutions to aid in these challenges that incorporate transdisciplinary perspectives. There is also an apparent need to shift the oddly myopic focus from humans in the center to humans in the middle and placing attention to the other areas impacted by our work. Systems Thinking, integrated into the Design Thinking process, appears to be a promising approach to this complexity and to address the unintended consequences of our designs. To create meaningful interventions, you must first understand the context of the system in which you are designing. Design thinking has a bias towards developing products and services that later may become problems in a system’s context. The integration of Systems Thinking, into the Design Thinking process, gives context to the scope of design work and enables the creation of more meaningful and intentional solutions. It is a means of embracing the chaos and explore the interconnected complexities of the system. Design thinking is a reductive approach to problem-solving, that may lead to….[continue]
6 principles for being more systemic in your design process
Principles and themes about systems thinking, circularity, sustainability, and design — synthesized from expert interviews. “Technological systems and the organizations responsible for those systems no longer reflect the values and purposes that once guided and governed their early growth.” — Resilience by Design, (Lee, 2016). The systems that we are designing are becoming increasingly more complex and interconnected. Without proper awareness and holistic understanding of how our designs integrate into the context of the broader designed ecosystem, our attempts to solve these problems may run the risk of creating additional unintended consequences. There is a need to develop new approaches to tackle complexity while addressing the risk of creating unintended consequences. Design Thinkers, System Thinkers, and Design Leaders, spanning six different countries, were all interviewed, and their responses were thematically grouped and synthesized. The results identified gaps in the current Design Thinking process and areas where Systems Thinking could add value — ultimately serving as the foundation for these Principles. Systemic by Design Principles — Overview. Setting Boundaries: ‘How high do you fly how low do you go?’ Determining the boundaries of your scope and zooming in and out of complexity to understand the causal relation between different….[Continue]
Resources to be more Systemic in your design process
The future of the planet relies on our responsibility to be more just, equitable, and sustainable. The first step is to access the research and resources available for us to leverage. Systemic Design is typically viewed from an idealistic and often intangible lens, thought of as largely theoretical and difficult to put into practice. In addition to the concept being challenging to grasp due to its broad and all-encompassing nature, there is also not one agreed upon definition or title. For example, ‘Systemic by Design’, ‘systemic design’, ‘systems design’, ‘systems-led design’, ‘system-oriented design’, ‘systems thinking in design’, ‘sustainable system design’, and the list goes on…[those titles] are all essentially referencing the same concept. Systemic Design, understood from my point of view, simply means having the necessary context needed to make decisions and the ability to switch between a holistic understanding of the system, stakeholder, user needs, and the needs of those not directly involved in the system yet still affected by the decision made within the system. By contrast, the Design Thinking process is typically seen as a means of innovating new solutions through a human-centered, or, “bottom-up” approach. However, Systems Thinking is typically thought of as a “top-down” and big picture view of the ecosystem (Tjendra, 2018).