Mobilizing the Potential of Systemic Design Research

ARC25 SIGHTLINES | Anthology of Reflexive Contributors | INTRODUCTION

I have experienced some wonderment perusing the first collection of Sightlines pieces and their artistic expression. Taken as a whole, it seems these are not so thematic or directional, but more personal inspirations that offer “reflection back” from a futuring offered by each author. There may be a manifesto or two, but even these are reflective and not arguing for new movements. Given a short open prompt to write reflexively about rationality in complexity, these insightful stories and proposals seem somewhat timeless, unbounded by the needs of the moment. This may balance the urgency of inquiries for change often fostered in systemic design thinking.

As a reflective invited editorial, I will not use my few words to skim these articles. Instead, I will introduce my own reflection, proposed in hopes for its application, as a possibility for our community, and for others not yet playing in (or on) this field.

At this adolescent stage of field development (10-20 years), we often see a narrowing focus of a dominant epistemic culture and bounded topics that are reinforced by the progression of study itself. What we focus our collective attention on, and reinforce by funding, collaboration and citation, becomes academic impact or output, at least. Impact becomes circular, and we assign importance to field-valued outcomes.

Systemic design research has the potential for revolutionising knowledge production and real-world impacts. Because of the intrinsic integration of design and theory for complexity, a committed research program would have the potential to reveal new knowledge in many scientific and practice fields, especially fields relying on human observers. We have barely mobilised its capabilities. It has drawn into its embrace not just the relationship between design studies and design research, and systemics (cybernetic-systems theory and systems practice), but “just about everything.”

While we may be educating students in line with academic interests, we can go much further. Systemic design has unexplored potential to inform matters that more specialised fields and methods have emerged to address. After more than a dozen years of teaching, mapping, researching, making and convening, I have applied our tools and methods to new economics, business strategy, healthcare and clinical service, ecosystem regeneration, scientific publishing, legal research, and peace studies. I think my students have covered nearly “everything else.”

Our society’s obsession with immediate impacts expresses the linear model of reactionary problem-solving, as well as the power motive. Urgency is not a system value; it is a reaction to contemporary events based on near-term priorities. Systemic design research enables us locate and address deeply persistent drivers of multiple crises and “resolve the right problem,” not just to design beautiful solutions to social effects. Such a stance requires long-term vision, consistent clarity on purpose and well-framed arguments and agreements on methods and truth regimes. There are very few fields that can deliver knowledge on the evolution of complex future impacts. When we can research and inform, the long-term, immediate benefits are always an outcome. The reverse is not the case.

In a recent search through the history and trajectory of research in design studies, I uncovered a Ranulph Glanville quote from nearly 50 years ago. His position was that design research was not just a practice of creative exploration for desired change in products and systems, but a model for better research, a designed process for scientific discovery, as well as the invention of artefacts.

Thus design will take its true place as the basis for the activities that create scientific (as well as other) knowledge, and will no longer be sneeringly and trivially dismissed by those who adjudicate without creating, and who are fooled into believing that science is as she is writ. There will be no need for a special area of design research, for all research will be seen to be part of design research, with that which we call, now, design research being the most basic of all. Ranulph Glanville (1981, p. 93)

As I explored this Design Research Society source (Jacques & Powell, 1981), I was struck by the breakthroughs in design thinking at this nearly-forgotten era of design. The proceedings from this meeting were published by Nigel Cross, Bruce Archer, George Rzevski, Clive Dilnot, John Chris Jones, and Ranulph Glanville. Ranulph was especially instrumental in the early formation of RSD and systemic design philosophy.

These authors not only foresaw but also acknowledged the importance of systemic design research; they distinguished early design directions for complex systems and large-scale multi-function platforms. Most explored how complexity or systems concepts, even systems theory, informed the emerging space of design studies.

I find it curious that after 50 years, many established methodologies remain just as powerfully fitting to problems, but are rarely innovated to new contexts. Also, our new methods are often adaptations of older, even forgotten approaches. Mixed-methods design research with innovative system analysis, adapting established techniques from legacy sources, can definitely strengthen the quality and impact of systemic research. Originality is revealed as much by adapting to context, not just inventing new methods as if it were the design task itself. If we face a uniquely complex situation, there is a good chance a methodology defined 20 or 50 years ago will fit better than today’s fashionable techniques. This disposition might also massively expand our toolbox for creative, effective design research.

Systemic design research aspires to an understanding of whole system contexts, cycles of change, and to account for the effects on non-humans and actants in designed environments. There is no centre in systemic design research—it is not system-centred. Perhaps even the centre in centred design has always been an artificial designation to limit our focus, to constrain ourselves to a design brief. More complex, multi-system studies require a mix of units of analysis, and as such, no centralising focus.

Mixed-unit research requires mixed methodology. Using multiple methods in a semi-structured strategy allows for progressive disclosing of the system and the adaptation of methods when a “next question” is revealed. As Glanville (1981) also suggests for scientific discovery, appropriate methods are selected to explore the potential findings in an inquiry when the focus of the emerging issue becomes understood.

Systemic design has no taxonomy or consensus boundaries on its interdisciplinary reach. Even if we count just the RSD authors, we have seen connections to many other fields and journals, from policy, economics, ecological regeneration, healthcare, management and organisational studies, and system engineering. These connections will continue to expand. And so might we expand our own vision to embrace a much wider reach of the potential of systemic design research.