Designing Behaviors

Several very good comments and observations from IDEO CEO and president Tim Brown in the current issue of Rotman (The Merits of an Evolutionary Approach to Design) - -

"As designers become more involved in solving the world's wicked problems, an ability to deal with complexity becomes all the more important.  In my view, this indicates a paradigm shift for the world of design, because it demands a shift from thinking about the world in the way that Sir Isaac Newton encouraged us to think about it, to the way that Sir Charles Darwin thought about it.  Let me explain.

Newton's world was based on the assumption that we have an ability to predict the world based on actions in the present.  When we think this way, it encourages us to be top-down in our activities, to be predictive, to believe that we can imagine a complete system.  I would argue that the complexity we often face today requires us to think more like Darwin, who encourages us to think about constant evolution, emergent change, and the notion of unpredictability on a large scale, even if we understand things on a small scale."

Brown highlights some possible aspects of a more Darwinian approach to design:

1. We should give up on the idea of designing objects and think instead about designing behaviors.  (This one might make people uncomfortable, but things like designing for sustainability are going to increasingly intersect with behaviors - - things like smart meters are about modifying behavior.)
2. We need to think more about how information flows.  (Improving our health care system and general health of the public requires getting the right information, about the right issues, to the right people.  Engineering faces a host of better information flow problems.)
3. We must recognize that faster evolution is based on faster iteration.  (This is a good point for engineering - - the idea we can launch things simply to learn from them is quite useful when we're thinking about increasing the reproductive pace of iteration in business.)
4. We must embrace selective emergence.  (The scientific method is still important and still rules.  Even in engineering.  Embracing new ideas starts with asking the right questions, coming up with a better hypotheses, designing effective experiments, and more importantly, sharing what we learned.)
5. We need to focus on fitness.  (Design starts with a clear purpose - - the overall mission of the organization must contribute and drive the purpose of the collective design process.)
6. We must except the fact that design is never done.  (We are entering an era where the end user will have much greater opportunity to modify "the thing" post-design.  The entire life-cycle of "the thing" may be marked by the customer participating in the design.)