Module 3
Designing Social Systems in a Changing World
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Linnéa Rönnquist reflecting on the role of a designer
This is an excerpt from the book Designing Social Systems in a Changing World:
‘…the issue of designing the designing system is a largely united topic. Nadler (1981) provide a set of propositions that guide thinking about it. Ackoff (1981), Banathy (1991), and Christakis (1995) have briefly described approaches for designing the design system. The reason for such a dearth of knowledge is quite obvious. The first- and second-generation design approaches are expert driven. Experts have their own approach to design and have no reason and no intention to empower their clients to do their own design. But once we have taken the position, as we have, that it is unethical to design a social system for someone else and the design of a social system is the right and responsibility of people who serve the system and are served and affected by it, then designing the designing system becomes an unavoidable and absolute requirement.’
Reflections from Linnéa:
Questions that I am responding to:
2.3 How can we design respectful, generative dialogues?
3.3 What can design bring to collaborative workspaces?
4.2 What would a design brief say in a world that made sense?
The relationship between this text and Linnéa:
When I first realised that no one would ever be able to understand a complex system, I had to start to question my own role as a designer. It became clear that no person alone would be able to design what would be necessary to shift a complex system. Similarly it would never be possible to implement a design as imagined at the point it was first designed. Instead, an emerging practice would be required where the system’s actors learn together along the way, morphing interventions based on new insights. A never-ending practice of design rather than a one-time effort.
Around the same time, I found Banathy’s expression “Designing a Designing System” and for me this was when everything started to make sense. My role as a designer is not to design the system but to enable the system to redesign itself.
Why is this relevant?
One could describe a social system a a system where humans are involved. In such systems, the shared mental models of those humans are guiding and creating the system’s structures, relationships and behaviours. To shift such a system, its underlying mental models need to transform.
I would argue that today’s wicked problems are to a large extent a consequence of social systems’ mental models.
A mental model is not necessarily a conscious belief but rather something subconscious. The subconscious is not rational, and many humans are not even aware of their subconscious beliefs, requiring a deeper psychological reprogramming. Hence, no external design proposal for how a system should be structured, organised, and operated will be able to be implemented in a social system. After a short while, the ruling subconscious beliefs will guide the system back to where it was before, or at least a similar state. This is something we can learn from case studies like Uber.
This is why the perspective of designing a designing system is relevant. It is a practice in which the system itself redesigns its structures, relationships, and behaviours while becoming aware of and reprogramming the mental models guiding its shape.students and makers of (representations of) systems, we should be aware of that power.
Questions for the students:
- What do you think a designer could do to design a designing system?
- What do you believe makes designers avoid this type of practice?
- How do you see your role as a designer today? And how does it relate to Banathy’s thinking?