UX Design for Complex Systems
How to design for the multiverse of interconnected products.
You are on the bus swiping down your social media news feed. The algorithm, acquainted with your tastes, suggests ads about a topic you discussed with a friend two hours earlier. It’s a cold night, and as you get closer to your house, you tap the smart home app to turn on the heat before you arrive.
You get home to find that your partner threw away a garment they bought two months ago. You can’t help but visualize all the waste accumulating in the world. Overwhelmed with dread, you head to the basement to check on your crypto mining setup. The room is hot from the exhaust, so you open the windows to let in some airflow.
You’ve made considerable amounts of money in the crypto market. Time to plan a new trip, maybe Bali? But Bali is suffering from over-tourism. The guilt sets in once again. You open a meditation app to declutter your mind. The soft voice stemming from the device gently guides you, and, as the sound fades into the background, you slowly fall asleep.
We are living in a time when our digital and physical experiences seamlessly blur into one. In the story above, we see how the character moves back and forth between the phone and the physical environment. Consequently, the actions they take in both spaces impact one another and consolidate into one unique experience. The story also depicts the implications these experiences have on our surroundings and, therefore, highlights the need to address them holistically. The social media platform, the meditation app, and so forth, represent individual worlds crafted, in part, by UX designers, to effortlessly flow into our daily lives by diminishing friction and championing human psychology. However, as the digital and the physical become further interconnected, the other worlds of the digital inevitably expand into our physical environments and further augment our universe into one multifaceted system.
As we move into the future, UX designers will play a critical role in shaping the connection between the digital world and the physical environment while addressing the positive and negative side effects they may perpetuate. Some of the negative aspects are well known, such as technology’s impact on mental health and on the natural environment. However, other challenges exist at a more insidious level as questions of data, privacy, racial bias, AI, and security arise with our newfound interconnectedness. Tackling these challenges requires a holistic design approach that encompasses the macro impact of these new relationships. To do so, designers should adopt a systems-thinking methodology to help them identify, analyze, intervene, and maintain the stability of these systemic multiverses.
“Smart” objects come to mind when discussing the interconnected relationship between the digital and the physical. While smart objects do play a crucial role in the development of this hybrid landscape, they are ultimately one small node in the network. From a business perspective, smart objects are a useful tool for companies looking to move beyond the limitations of competing for customers based solely on price point. With a trove of user data at their disposal, businesses can find new opportunities by leveraging the data gathered by smart objects to create stronger customer relationships. This scenario, while beneficial from a business standpoint, brings up questions about the ethics of leveraging customer data for financial gain. Besides, the security of the data itself is a big concern, primarily when its safety relies on not only the user’s discretion but also on the morality of the companies collecting it.
As a systems-oriented UX designer, the above scenario presents an opportunity to improve a systemic problem by addressing how to protect user data while addressing business needs. The first step would be to understand the systems at play (business structure and user data distribution) to identify a vulnerable point in the framework that could be leveraged for improvement. Otherwise known as “leverage points,” these vulnerable points are “places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.” (Places to Intervene in a System by Donella H. Meadows) The examples above fall into the category of a cybernetic system that operates through feedback loops towards achieving a specific goal. As the controller, finding the leverage point can allow you to adjust the system to better perform its intended task.
To find the leverage point in the above scenario, the designer has to first understand the role data plays in the relationship between the user and the company while accounting for the user’s approach to data security in their daily lives. Essentially, they need to identify the system type, how it behaves, and the information within it before they can effectively intervene. Once the leverage point is detected, the designer can move forward to intervene in the system’s behavior. Donella Meadows further explores nine potential leverage points in this article.
“People know intuitively where leverage points are. Time after time I’ve done an analysis of a company, and I’ve figured out a leverage point. Then I’ve gone to the
company and discovered that everyone is pushing it in the wrong direction!” — Jay Forrester
Framing these systems as unique worlds in and of themselves can help us assimilate the complexity required to design for them. It can also allow us to understand the psychological impact they have on our daily lives. If we were to frame Facebook as a system creating a unique digital world, we could better pinpoint the anomalies causing mental health distress and sociopolitical conflict. Once identified, we could design frameworks that help us intervene in the very aspects of the system that perpetuate these unintended side effects instead of relying on new features and modifications to solve the problem. Moreover, how we communicate these challenges is critical to involving stakeholders in the effort to improve them. However, this can only be achieved if we have a solid understanding of how these systems behave inter-relationally.
At their core, all of these multiverses are shaped by a unique paradigm, a value proposition, a set of beliefs that fuels them and entices others to engage with them. Whether it is a large corporation, a small startup, or a country, the paradigm is so embedded in its cultural identity that it becomes challenging to leverage change within it. The more accustomed users and stakeholders become to the success, the brand, or the experience of a product, the less likely they are to want to change it.
The best way to engage others in a discussion of paradigm change is by modeling the system. Conceptual maps are a great tool to diagram a system and identify its information, behaviors, relationships, and determine leverage points. Additionally, when it comes to getting stakeholders on board, the concept map plays a crucial role in communicating its anomalies visually. Envision the diagrams as maps of these unique worlds that depict their affinities, their connections, and the frameworks supporting them.
Today, the need to propose new paradigms is imperative as we confront some of the most promising and challenging events facing humanity. Undoubtedly, designing and intervening at a systemic level is complicated, time-sensitive, and potentially overwhelming. However, as designers, we have the analytical and creative skills to not only identify faulty frameworks but to reimagine and propose new ways of transitioning into entirely new modes of thinking. Systems thinking allows us to frame design solutions that tackle the root of a problem instead of acting as a temporary band-aid bound to come undone.
While the interconnectedness enabled by technological adoption has pushed the world towards a homogenous future, the vast majority of the globe remains a collection of smaller universes with their unique systems supporting them. Technology, with its ability to augment the way we experience these worlds, has, in turn, created an even more complex tapestry of multiverses hybridizing the natural and the artificial. Whether it’s the old or new conventions, existing paradigms are bound to break as we contend with this new future. As designers, it behooves us to sharpen and expand our skills, so we can contribute ideas and approaches that shape the paradigms of the future.
