Systemic design
Combines systems thinking with human-centered design to understand complex systems with many actors, such as health care or transportation, and intervene in them.
What it deals with
Many problems have no single cause or owner: fixing one part of the system can make another worse.
Principles
See the system
Map actors, relationships and loops.
Widen the boundaries
Include those affected by the problem, even if they are not customers.
Leverage points
Look for where a small change moves a lot.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Draw the whole system before proposing a solution.
Avoid
Treating a complex problem as solved with a single product or service.
Don’t fall for it
In a system, every solution has side effects: look for them.
Models
- ModelLeverage pointsThe places in a system where a small change can produce a big effect, from shallowest to deepest.
Methods and tools
- MethodCausal loop diagramA map of arrows that shows how some things push others until they form circles.
- MethodEcosystem mapDrawing all the actors in a service and what they exchange, to see the whole system.
Connections
Builds on
Authors and works
- 1996
Béla H. Banathy
Proposed designing social systems, not just objects.
- 2014
Peter H. Jones
Set out principles of systemic design for complex social systems.
Sources
Original sources
- Banathy, B. H. (1996). Designing social systems in a changing world. Plenum Press.
- Jones, P. H. (2014). Systemic design principles for complex social systems. In G. S. Metcalf (Ed.), Social systems and design (pp. 91–128). Springer. View source: Jones, P. H. (2014)
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