On the role of systems thinking in design and its application to public self-services

This paper uses the paradigm of e-accessibility, and in particular the application of publicly available selfservices in order to demonstrate and discuss the power of a Systems Thinking perspective in Design, and more specifically in the design of services. Our aim is to present some justification as to why employing systems thinking can help designers to identify and acknowledge holistically the dimensions of problem space for which they are required to design. The richness of the approach will be discussed, through some theoretical tenets of systems thinking, such as the use of the emerging properties, and the law of requisite variety, notions of second order cybernetics etc. in the conceptualisation and praxis of design

Centre-Periphery and Specialization in the E. U. : An Analysis From a New Economic Geography Perspective

This paper attempts an assessment of a number of basic statistical indicators of EU regions and countries from a New Economic Geography (NEG) perspective. After a brief overview of the underlying theoretical framework, two important hypotheses of NEG’s theoretical models are examined for the case of EU regions: (a) the existence of a center-periphery pattern, with the use of indicators measuring the “home market effectâ€; (b) the existence of Marshall-type “economies of localizationâ€, as well as of “dynamic external economiesâ€, on the basis of “knowledge-intensive†and “human capital†indicators. This analysis takes place on a regional scale. An assessment of the evolution of specialization in EU countries is also undertaken with the use of an index of “regional specializationâ€. The analysis provides clear indications that, the deepening of European integration led to both phenomena described by NEG models: (a) the strengthening of two types of concentrations – “the enlargement of the home market†and “local external economies†- in the traditional industrial centres of the EU; (b) an increase in the degree of specialization of its member-states. Policy implications point to the strengthening of factors that could lead to the development of new dynamic centres in peripheral EU regions.

Systems thinking for design thinking.

This article seeks to contribute to a discussion which could propitiate, in my opinion, the emergence of interesting connections between the Systemic Design field, German media theory, and the work of Bruno Latour on Science and Technology Studies (STS). Based on the invitation of this symposium to discuss at the frontiers of Systemic Design, I will outline this argument in the following four parts: profession versus discipline; things and obstacles; ANT and confrontational agencies; and (un)designing technological apparatuses for confrontation

Perspectives on systemic design: Examining heterogeneous relevant literature to provide a historical and ‘systemically inspired’ review

Review Methodology As the ideas of systemic thinking become more familiar and found in many disciplinary discourses, so there is an increase in work reviewing systemic thought. Existing literature reviews are often conducted from a particular disciplinary standpoint, for instance, management (Mele et al, 2010); engineering (Monat, 2015) . It is as yet too early to carry out a literature review on systemic design. Therefore, although this paper is in the tradition of a literature review, it differs in two respects. The first difference is in the emphasis on giving a sense of a historical perspective (Peruccio, 2017). This allows us to move from the type of literature review whose primary purpose is to draw out key concepts. Rather, we wish to add to the ‘key concepts’ review, a narrative that builds on timelines and contemporary reactions to relevant discourse in the period under study. The second difference, is to use a review methodology based on a systems-inspired literature review (Sylvester et al, 2013). This encourages drawing in a range of literature, and lends support to narrative inferences by making explicit the interrelationships between ideas, timelines and contemporary discourse. The rationale for making these departures from traditional review methodologies is that, since systemic design is relatively new, grounding it within a historical perspective is an important contribution to establishing a background. Also, systemic design’s ‘newness’ means that resources are not discoverable using traditional literature review search techniques which rely on pre-defining search terms. However, we believe that a review based on ‘sweeping in’ (Nelson, 2003) heterogeneous relevant research literature will offer a richer set of materials. In short, this review would seeks to map the trajectory of ideas that have been influential in systemic design and related themes ‘entangled’ with systemic design, and by doing this, generate fresh insights into the philosophy, theory and praxis of systemic design. Entanglement Since both systems thinking and design have highly inter-disciplinary traditions, it is natural that both should be bound up with many types of work, and that sometimes valuable pieces of research are located in publication outlets that would not normally be directly associated with design or systems, such as with a collection of resources about sustainability (Systemic Learning for Sustainability, 2019) or healthcare (Clarkson et al 2017). Moreover, it may be that the perspective, which may be for example, the collection in which the resource is located conceals viewpoints relevant to systemic design. For instance, we know that participatory approaches are a bedrock of systemic design, yet foundational research on the notion of co-design as collective creativity, leading possible “transformation toward more sustainable ways of living in the future” (Sanders and Stappers, 2008) does not mention systems, although it might be argued that it appears to have absorbed it. Another example is when systems thinking is applied to an area contingent to design, such as creativity: Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist, claims systemic implications on creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). Therefore, following relevant themes and topics and also research groups [e.g.,1] is important. This is not done with a primary aim of discovering search terms, – although this can be useful at a later stage for seeking out more resources, – rather, it is mapping themes to an overall emerging picture, so that interrelationships can be reflected upon. This, in turn, leads to more discoveries until a ‘saturation’ point is reached, sufficient for a well-grounded narrative accounting for how certain themes are related and how developments have emerged. This narrative can then give some basis to make assumptions about how they might continue to develop. As an example.. The trajectory of systems thinking and systems oriented design offered by (Peruccio, 2017) shows how a historical perspective can be illuminating. Between the 1972 publication of the Limits to Growth (Meadows D. el al, (1972)and the Buchanan’s 1992 paper noting an area of design “concerned with complex systems or environments”(p.10) (Buchanan, 1992) there is a gap of two decades. Previous to this, we know that systems thinking was taught in the now famous design educational establishment that was the Ulm school, (1953-68). Also, we know that in this period Design was pre-occupied with self-reflection on the nature of design e.g. ‘designing designing’ (Jones, 2014); with debates about intuition versus positivism, with ‘designerly ways of knowing’ (Cross, 1982). It is strange that systems thinking does not seem to have infiltrated to produce ‘systemic design’ earlier. We might speculate, that perhaps it was because of an association between positivism and system dynamics (Coyne and Snodgrass, 1991; Cross, 1993)? In a different discipline, Collopy notes that systems thinking did not implant itself in management (Collopy, 2009) although he attributes this to need to acquire literacy in systems. The question of systems literacy is also part of other discourses around systems thinking, with claims that systems literacy is essential to all research endeavours (Bosch et al, 2007; Dubberly, 2014). Design History and Literature Reviews Design historians are the acknowledged experts in answering these kinds of questions posed above (Formia, 2017). However, we maintain that literature reviews, especially those framed as we have described, could also be helpful. For instance, within design oriented academic journals, there is an emergence of concern with incorporating wider issues into design. Examples are papers on ‘whole system design’ integrating social, economic and environmental phenomena (Blizzard and Klotz, 2012; Charnley et al, 2011) and the linking of ‘design for sustainability’ (DfS) as design for ‘system innovations and transitions’ (Ceschin and Gaziulusoy, 2016). Many of these papers evolve their systems thinking discourse from exposure to interests in sustainability (stewardship of the planet), or to ‘bumping up against’ complexity in their design work. This correlates the claim that, “design studies today tend to follow an ambiguous version of complexity theory, rendered without citations or methodological influence” (p123) (Jones, 2014). If this is the case, is design simply responding to the pervasiveness of calls for the need for systems thinking, apparent in all kinds of settings (Bland and Bell, 2007; Vexler, 2017)? Current work and future directions The plan for our work, is to continue to map out themes and timelines, with the aim of also creating a set of resources that can be added to, interpreted (and re-interpreted) to explore the interrelationships of timelines with themes that are found both in and around systemic design. A number of such themes have already presented themselves in our work so far, such as the relationships between service design and systemic design which call for more exploration (Darzentas J. and Darzentas J.S., 2014; Darzentas J. and Darzentas J.S., 2017). Another theme is to examine the antecedents of recent work on systems thinking as a psychological construct (Davis et al, 2018; Randle and Stroink, 2018) and speculate what this might mean for designing with neurodiversity. More immediately, the suggested synthesis of Design Thinking and Systems Thinking (Ryan, 2014; Pourdehnad et al, 2011) is a fertile ground for more nuanced investigations as evidenced by (Jones, 2014; Sevaldson, 2017). It is our hope that we can also engage with the emerging systemic design community, via the new Systemic Design Association, to create a special interest group of like-minded researchers, in order to, for instance, bring in impactful literature from sources that are unknown to the wider community, because of not being published outside of national boundaries, or inaccessible due to language barriers, or being published in non-indexed resources. In this way, we hope our review work will not only lead to publications, but the establishment of a background prompting fresh research questions

Systems thinking for service design: A natural partnership

In this paper it is claimed that the design praxis in human centric problems is primarily influenced and directed by the degree of complexity of the design problem. It is becoming apparent that complexity should not be avoided but instead it should be utilized as much as possible. The consequence will be that as the complexity increases the designers should move from the expected Product Design oriented approach to Service Design in order to retain and utilize as much of the problem space as possible, which means that a holistic approach should be adopted. A natural way to achieve this is to tackle it with the use of Systems Thinking. Two exemplars are used to demonstrate that when Complexity increases, designers are led to applying systemic thinking to the problem and the tenets of systemic thinking may lead the designers into designing services, in spite of them having been contracted to provide products. Also as complexity increases and the whole design space is considered, co-design becomes synonymous to design. Therefore, as complexity increases, the problem is re-defined and there is movement from product, through to service, with perhaps sometimes the product becoming a by-product of the service design praxis

Accelerating learning and adaptation at organizational and societal scales: Adopting design for all

This reflective paper speculates on the problem of Design for All (also known as Universal Design) and its very low rate of uptake, in spite of widespread acknowledgement of its centrality and importance. The paper argues that framing the problem with the aid of systemic approaches will help not only to understand some of the reasons for the low uptake, but also to see ways forward to increase uptake, and thereby accelerate the learning and adaptation of the organisations that are tasked with adopting and implementing Design for All, as well as more global and proactive adoption by societal elements in general. Design for All is the term adopted by the European Union for a policy of not “designing out” vulnerable populations. Following on from the Universal Design movement in the 1970s in the United States, the EU placed emphasis on the removal of barriers of access to products and services for persons with disabilities. Furthermore, the ageing of the population has put these issues high on the political agenda. All this places a clear direction on the social aspect of design, and in turn of design’s impact on society. The problem of awareness, once very high on the agenda of those working in Design for All, is no longer such a priority. Awareness has been greatly aided by the communities and organisations of disabled and elderly users, who have made visible both the problems and the needs of these populations. Nor should, altruism be seen as a prime motivation- there has been the widespread dissemination of the message that some form of temporary disability is likely to affect all of us at some time in our lives, and, as we all hope to live long lives, we should also design for our “future selves”. Finally, a further type of outreach is education. Design for All is on the curriculum of Universities, and seeks to influence and engage younger generations of designers in their formative years

What to teach? A taxonomy of Knowledge and Skills for 'Design for All' Curricula related to HCI

An EU project called IDCnet is focusing on educating the students and professionals who are learning and working in the area of information and communication technologies (ICT) to include the requirements of older and disabled people. The aim of the project is to integrate information and identify core knowledge sets and skills for model curricula in Design for All (DfA) specifically for information and communication products, systems and services. Various categories of knowledge and skills have been identified as being important to include in modules and courses with Design for All content, e.g., awareness raising, reasons for promoting Design for All, and what legislation and guidelines are important to consider. Nine categories and some suggestion of the content of courses in inclusive design for ICT are discussed, suggesting what to teach and why it is important. The paper concludes by stating that the work of IDCnet will be extended by carrying out teaching pilots, by communicating the results to Education Policy and Strategy bodies, and by inviting participation and contributions from interested and informed experts in this field

The IDCnet approach: educating students and professionals in 'design for all'

will enable people with impairments to move through life with appropriate Assistive Technology to meet their changing needs. A key requirement within such an infrastructure is education. The Inclusive Design Curriculum Network (IDCnet) is a Thematic Network financed by the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme of the European Commission (http://www.idcnet.info/). The aim of the project is to integrate information and identify core knowledge sets and skills for model curricula in Design for All (DfA) specifically for information and communication products, systems and services. This presentation will present some ideas which are still under discussion and will invite further contributions, both now and as the project progresses

Using MOOCs to Promote Digital Accessibility and Universal Design, the MOOCAP Experience

The recently completed Massive Open Online Course for Accessibility Partnership project (MOOCAP), had the twin aims of establishing a strategic partnership around the promotion of Universal Design and Accessibility for ICT professionals and of developing a suite of Open Educational resources (OERs) in this domain. MOOCAP\u27s eight university partners from Germany, Norway, Greece, Ireland, the UK and Austria have a significant history in developing and providing courses in the domains of Universal Design and Accessibility, as well as leading research and advocacy roles within Europe. The MOOCAP project consisted of two phases: the development of an introductory MOOC on Digital Accessibility and the delivery of set of online courses with more in-depth and focused learning topics. During the lifetime of the project over 10,000 students signed up for these courses. This paper reflects on the challenges of creating and delivering MOOCs, especially in topics around Digital Accessibility and Universal Design. It considers the outcomes, impacts and legacies of the project. Based on our experiences of integrating these materials into our courses and on feedback and project evaluations, this paper will assess the potential of MOOCs to promote Universal Design for ICT and other professionals, while pointing up the possible trials and opportunities of such activities