Maud Gruyters, Stine Moons, Ivo Dewit and Alexis Jocoby
While systemic design is getting more attention in research and practice, design education is following by expanding its design programs with systemic design courses and electives. This expansion uncovers new challenges for design educators and students. One of these challenges is a recurring bottleneck in the systemic design process: moving between the analysis phase and the design phase. Design students can get overwhelmed by the amount of information they gathered and feel a sense of knowledge paralysis when they need to move on to explore the possibility space with design interventions. The increased complexity of the multilevel and multiperspective design challenges not only creates a larger possibility space but also opens up the range of possible intervention configurations. Products or product-service solutions are no longer the only possible answers to systemic design challenges: students need to determine the best possible combination of products, services and systemic design interventions for their problem, while strengthening and enriching the relations between the different interventions. To assist students in this bottleneck moment in the systemic design process, the Landing Zones tool was created in an iterative process of research through design. The tool makes it possible to restructure design interventions on a range between systemic solutions and product solutions, connecting them to the previously defined leverage points and involved and affected actors. The tool was tested with students doing a systemic design master’s thesis project at the University of Antwerp and improved upon based on their feedback, gathered in a survey. The results show that the tool did support the students in lowering the threshold between the analysis and design phase, but could be improved upon to make it more suitable for decision-making and actor involvement. The Landing Zones proves to be a valuable addition to the growing body of tools and methods to support the systemic design process for students learning to navigate the complexity of systemic design.
Keywords: systemic design, design education, tools & methods, complexity, exploring the possibility space