Ellen Merkus, Jotte de Koning, Mieke van der Bijl – Brouwer, Jan – Carel Diehl
Over the last years, systemic visualisation has grown in popularity as a sense making practice in design for complex societal issues. Although different design studies report on systemic visualisation, there is no consensus on what systemic visualisation is, nor what role it has in a design process. This paper aims to provide an overview on how systemic visualisation has been applied and studied in the design community. This leads to the following question: what different perspectives on systemic design visualisation exist in the systemic design community? The paper presents a systematic literature review of 39 articles on systemic design visualisation in the field of design. The paper analyses (1) which systemic visualisations were deployed, (2) what purposes the visualisation(s) served, (3) their role in a design process, (4) what is noted about the effects and outcomes, and lastly (5) what is reported on the existence of social bias when working with systemic visualisation.
Our findings show that systemic visualisation exists in many shapes and forms and are employed in different design contexts. Based on the reviewed studies, we identify two main viewpoints on using systemic visualisation. The first departs from a constructivist approach where systemic visualisation supports social learning. The second viewpoint departs from a rather functional approach. Here a systemic visualisation is used as a tool for system analysis and identifying areas for intervention. Finally, we note that most of the reviewed studies on systemic visualisation seem to ignore the existence of social bias. We conclude with discussing the need for more awareness of social bias when working with systemic visualisation.
Keywords: systemic design, systemic visualisation, systemic mapping, systemic methods