A Case for Design
Design is not something we can choose to care about or not - we’re living in a world intertwined with things, mechanical and smart, analog and digital, that have been designed by us and in turn design us through our behavior, over time. These things and processes are something we have to engage with no matter what. We don’t really have much choice there.
The most interesting thing about Design, to me, is that we’re all designers, because we do have a choice in how we participate in the world. Everyone influences their small personal sphere, community and society. These are some of the choices we could make:
Make a choice to design (create products and services) in a way that improves our experiences of being part of a society.
Make a choice to design in a way that serves only a few, in the short term and potentially (very likely) harms some people, whole communities or humanity itself.
Make a choice by choosing to do nothing about things we critique and complain about. Sit back and watch humanity devolve.
Become an anarcho-primitivist. Yes that’s a choice too and an infinitely more interesting one than choosing to do nothing.
Another very interesting thing about design is the scale at which it exists. Design is about everyday things and it is also about the complex frameworks of society. Applying the tools for designing well are necessary at both levels.
Scale: Design of Everyday Things
This is a fictional object but the point it’s making is that if an everyday object is difficult to use or gets in our way - it’s not the user that lacks understanding but the design itself.
This is a badly designed door. You might have seen one like this or many other kinds of badly designed doors. Doors shouldn’t require any intentional thought. They should be intuitive to use! We should be able to continue with our prefrontal cortex activity contemplating whether it is the meaninglessness of life or how to bring down patriarchy without the rude interruption of a door that didn’t open when we interacted with it the way it seems natural to.
People named these doors Norman doors and they’re everywhere. Vox made a funny video about that.
Don Norman studied the psychology (design) of everyday things such as doors that are difficult to open, light switches that make no sense, shower controls that are unfathomable.
Any everyday object that creates unnecessary problems. These problems sound trivial, but they can mean the difference between pleasure, and frustration. The same principles that make these simple simple things work well or poorly apply to more complex operations, including ones in which human lives are at stake.
– Don Norman
Scale: Design of Complex Systems
Design is also about systems that are essential to our well being and existence.
We are already surrounded by processes that design products, systems and behaviors.
A well known process is the scientific method and when applied towards continuous improvement it can look like:
Below is a case study of how Mayo clinic applied their clinical approach for testing drugs to testing relationships and people facing aspects of care. Mayo clinic’s epiphany was about the relevance of the design process that they were already using (scientific method) for another system.
Let’s talk about one of the technologies closest to us: semiconductors. These power our lives and make possible all the devices that we live with; some of these that we aren’t even aware of! Some devices are right in front of us but we don’t actively think about them because we don’t need to, as long as they’re doing the function they were designed to do - well and consistently.
In semiconductor research and development, new chips are not built on a whim or design opinion of a single person or even a single team. There are as many as a 100 layers on a single chip, each requiring deep understanding of the subject matter and each layer interfacing with the next.
Even a device as simple as a smart thermostat has a lot of complexity. There are hardware, firmware, software components - each layer of engineering was made possible because of decades of innovations making the next set of innovations possible. Can you imagine the amount and variety of work that goes into designing a complex piece of technology that in the world serves a simple and dedicated function of regulating its environment’s temperature? The ‘smart’ part allows users to set schedules or routines and forget about it. The device handles this function for them from then on.
If there are even the smallest things that don’t work right - it could mean constant irritation for the user, a complete failure of its intended function, or at its worst it could put the user in danger.
When you open up apps that you use on your (smart) phone everyday for communicating and coordinating day-to-day activities between your household, school, work, etc - If something gets in the way of you accomplishing a task, it will be noticed by you right away. Even the smallest of bugs can disrupt and trigger a chain of annoyances that most users do not expect to live with today.
Software fixes and updates are quick to roll out and aren’t that costly and that’s why the world of Software runs on the principle of ‘move fast and break things’. The same philosophy can’t be followed across other platforms of engineering though. Firmware and Hardware are very, very costly to iterate upon and the margin of error needs to be less than the margin that would be perceivable by the user.
(Note: There are exceptions - mission critical projects like space travel where software needs to have a margin of error similar to traditional engineering.)
As we get closer and closer to those layers of tech that are slower to change and correct, we’ll find that more work, collaboration, expertise, prototyping, testing and care goes into it.
Does the same happen in the service sector? Some services that power our lives are:
Healthcare
Education
Social Security
Unemployment Assistance
These systems that are painfully slow to change and improve - have these been built with the same type of deliberation, application of rigorous processes and understanding of all components that fit together like a puzzle?
No, I don’t think they are.
But I’d urge for us to expect them to be and advocate for them to be and make it so they are.
Now, I could be wrong about this statement and the failures might exist despite a rigorous and deliberate process but in either case there are specific improvements that could be made.
One pessimistic reason one might give for not attempting to design better systems is that humans are a big factor in these systems and that makes these systems less reliable and more unpredictable. A transistor will do exactly the same thing it’s been designed for, for its specified life time. Humans though? We are more complex and less consistent. I have to say though - that’s a feature not a bug and we should use the fact that we’re not robots (though we are programmable) to our advantage as well :) but for now, let’s continue focusing on the challenge that this feature adds.
How can a process help design better systems meant to serve our societies?
I agree with the view that we are a product of our environment and our experiences. So, we can continually influence ourselves and continually improve ourselves using our environments and experiences.
If we find ourselves being dissatisfied with people who are are the interface between us and the complex systems and they in turn are dissatisfied with the people who hold certain gates in those systems, having more power than them, and so on… we must consider what are the systems that are shaping people to behave in ways we disagree with as well as what are the problems that hinder people from behaving in the ways we want them to.
If we are to consider applying a design process to improve services in our communities, what might that look like?
References
Don Norman, Design of Everyday Things
Alice Rawsthorn, Hello World
Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice
Michelle Jia, Who gets to be innovate?
Other Readings
Ian Paul, What is a 5nm chip?
Sebastian Romero Torres, How difficult is it to design a next generation one?
QingPeng Wang, Accelerating Semiconductor Process Development Using Virtual Design of Experiments
