Socially responsible system design

“Systems theory lies at the heart of the design process,” a quote from Jan Nichols in his article ‘A Hearty Economy and Healthy Ecology Can Co-exist’ in the current Journal of Interior Design.

He goes on, “We cannot design with segregated elements; all must work together in the systems we create. The design process is organic and, at its essence, must respond to a changing environment in the same way life forms adapt to environmental alterations. This process moves us beyond tapping into biophilia—the method that Stieg intelligently suggests—to design by biomimicry (Benyus, 1997), which means recognizing organic patterns and natural connections, understanding the causes and effects of competing and interrelated components, and then making appropriate design modiications. We intuitively design for flexibility, adaptability, universality, and plan space for growth, restructuring and contraction. In its inherent capacity to adapt, deconstruct, and recreate as needed, the design process mirrors the actions of living organisms. Therefore, the educated and experienced designer uses the model of systems theory during the routine course of project work. If any professionals understand that success doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and that everything affects everything else, it is those professionals who design the built environment. Systems theory gives us a basis upon which to model an earth-altering paradigm shift (Hawken,Llovins, & Lovins, 1999). “

It brings to mind Bill Buxtons keynote at CHI 2008, where he basically put out a call for designers to consider the wider implications of their designs…to think in systems rather than just software.

I’m sympathetic to and inspired by such calls to action, but to be honest, I find the whole process little daunting. I look at the projects I am currently working on: the complexity of the processes we support and diversity of our users, the gaps in our understanding, the requirements coming in from different directions, and the fact that we have to get a product designed, built, and shipped by…well, by yesterday. And then I think of sustainable design, of systems thinking, of ecological and social responsibility; and I have to admit that I’m not sure if all of these wonderful concepts and considerations can comfortably fit into my already strained work day.

I am also aware that I am working for a business. As an interaction and product designer I come up with many wonderful ideas about how to improve our software, of which only a fraction of which make it through the various organizational filters (are we willing to invest in this type of design/technology? do we have the resources? does it make us money?), and into the actual products.

It’s an interesting dilemma. I will be posting more on this soon.

the social systems approach

I just started reading ‘Human Behavior in the Social Environment’ by Gary Lowe & Irl Carter. It has been sitting under my bed for a month or so, and now I’m kicking myself for not pulling it out sooner.

The authors offer systems thinking for conceptualizing social action and interaction in an integrative manner. This is opposed to the narrow focus of most fields related to human behavior, which generally analyze all occurrences based on a primary unit of analysis – individual, group, culture, society…

The social systems approach, on the other hand, can encompass both holistic (group/ top-down) and atomistic (individual/bottom-up) views at once. It gave me some peace of mind that they mention the confusion that occurs when observing the behavior of individuals, ‘where the relation between the part and the whole is always an issue.’ So its not just me who’s confused by that:-).

Interestingly, they went on to talk about ‘energy’ in social systems, where both information and energy are exchanged between parts of a social system. They describe social energy as ‘the systems capacity to act, it’s power to maintain itself, and to effect change.’They discuss synergy and entropy in social systems:

Synergy: “Synergy refers to increasingly available energy within a system derived from a heightened interaction amoung its components.” Ruth Benedict has used the term ’social synergy,’ i.e. “the amplification of goal-directed activity where there was a fit between the individual goals of persons sharing a culture and the goals of the culture” (Lowe & Carter citing Maslow, 1964: 153-64).

Entropy: “Entropy is the tendency of an unattended system to move towards an unorganized state characterized by decreased interactions amoung it’s components, followed by a decrease in usable energy.” Systems theorists have been tripped up by the fact that human systems have inherently different properties from physical systems, particularly with regards to entropy. Some believe that the law of entropy does not apply to organic or social systems. Schrodinger offered the confusing concept of negenthropy where organisms ‘build up’ based on negative entropy rather than run down, while Gyorgyi proposes synthropy as a term to describe the innate drive of living matter to seek wholeness and to protect itself.

Which takes us back to the different levels of analysis in the social sciences…does group ‘wholeness’ degrade or enhance individual wholeness? Agile seems to do a very good job of aligning the goals of the individual with the group (and vice versa), and so reducing internal divisiveness and conflict (friction) and increasing flow of energy (synergy) or movement towards a common end goal.