Systemic Approach

Transform your design.

Our fast-paced world is constantly changing. It is connected, evolving, and amplifying the smallest inputs. As designers, when we create products for businesses, we often design within our user bubble. We see the user experience as the ultimate goal of our work. However, in doing so, we lose sight of our connection to the world and forget the impact and responsibility we have.

Page Overview

This page provides Information about system-oriented design methods – what is important and how they work.. Sections in Detail:

01: Basics about System Orientation
02: Reasons for System Orientation
03: Four Systemic Design Approaches
04: Circular Design
05: Disruptive Design
06: Systemic by Design
07: Sustainable Design
08: Next – Human Approach

Basics about
System -orientation.

Thinking in systems allows us to dissect and explore the world in more manageable ways without disrespecting the larger complex whole. We look to the parts, connections, flows, feedbacks, and consequences of elements within a defined system. When we look at the world through a systems lens, we see that, yes, everything is interconnected.

— Acaroglu - Disruptive Design Method Handbook

Today's and tomorrow's UX designers should shift their focus from the "people at the center" to the "people at the center of a comprehensive system".

Why do we need system thinking?

We as designers have created use-centered experiences. Experiences whose purpose is long-term customer loyalty and increased profits within a consumer-driven economy. However, within this linear process, designers forget that products or the service created are only one part of a widely interconnected system. The impact of our work as UX or UI designers is passed on to the customer, the human being and ultimately to the planet and the following generations.

4 — systemic
approaches.

Circular
design.

What is
Circular Design

The current corporate culture is based on a linear value chain — A take-make-waste system. The intention of this practice is to redesign a sustainable and regenerative circular economy. For this purpose, the design process is implemented at the very beginning. Circular Design thus represents a new model for our global economy, in which design is at the center - and thus the designer itself. It’s about resource management, sustainable product development and what to after the usage.

Circular Design Guide

4 Steps of
Circular Design

The circular economy is based on the following three principles, which are driven by design. Eliminate waste and pollution, make circulate products and materials as well as way to regenerate nature.

The Circular Design Guide helps the designer understand that his design can have a direct impact on our environment and the way people live together. Human needs are analyzed in detail and compared with the feasibility within the system. Therefore, the following 4 method steps are the basis for the design process.

Widen your view of user-centeredness — Reimagine viability — Design for evolution — Build a strong narrative

Sources & Reading

Disruptive
Design.

The disruptive design approach was developed by Leyla Acaroglu as a systems-based method of creative intervention design. In short, a way for designers to rethink previous solutions and see them in a new light. Its goal is to bring about positive change that allows designers to explore and actively shape a future that works.

Disruptive design is about changing the complex, existing system and finding starting points to establish sustainability. In contrast to innovation, the disruption approach aims to incorporate social and environmental principles into problem solving. The following 12 method sets are components within Disruptive Design.

Disruptive Designer embraces these
six concenpts.

Everything is interconnected
Change is constant
The future is undefined
All change should be sustainable
Challenge is part of reward
Change is iterative

The disruptive Design Method is about Mining into a problem set, Landscaping to unciver the dynamic systems at play, and then designing and building opportunities for systems positive interventions.

Leyla Acaroglu — Disruptive Design Method Handbook

Disruptive Design
— methods.

Problem Loving

Dive deep into the problem arena. Develop research approaches. Explore the elements within and develop insights.

Systems Mapping

Identify the main elements in the system, map how they interact, relate and connect. Identify points of intervention.

Ideation & Intervention

Generate disruptive ideas for interventions. Explore viability. Test, prototype & repeat.Make change!

Disruptive Design Sources

Systemic by
design.

What is
Systemic
by Design

Systemic design allows stakeholders to perceive the current situation from multiple perspectives simultaneously and to include context and impact. The combination of the systemic view as well as the design thinking method is at the core of "Systemic by Design" and puts the transformation of the designer into a larger context. Products and services should not be the "end goal" of the designer, but to be understood as a point of leverage within the system to avoid unintended consequences. The following images shows the systemic design thinking process

Systemic by Design

The need for
system-orientation
within Design Thinking

While the current design thinking method provides promising approaches to address problems and resulting solutions as innovatively and creatively as possible within the design process, a systemic view helps to consider the overall context. The existing weaknesses, such as a content-related closedness as well as a short-sighted product development-related perspective, are largely avoided by combining them with the confrontation of system-oriented effects.

Principles of
"Systemic by Design"

Setting Boundaries — Small Hinges Open Big Doors — The Business Case for Humanity — Red Teaming for the Future — Systems are Personal — Ego-System to Ecosystem

Systemic (by) Design Sources

Sustainable
Design.

Human interaction is based on our needs, emotions, memory, or reactions. At the same time, if we use storytelling as the basis of design, we can satisfy the human need for understanding causes and positively influence expectations.

If we want to act, all interaction possibilities should be clear, constant feedback should confirm us and all elements should be arranged meaningfully, so that we form positive emotions with the product. Good UX design links our perception with our emotion and visual aesthetics.

Sustainable Design

"The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it."

Robert Swan - 2041 Foundation

What does
Sustainable Design involve?

Sustainable design encompasses all aspects of the product life cycle during development. From the procurement or extraction of raw materials, production and production chain, its use, recycling and final disposal. We as digital designers can start within web and app design. Sustainable web design includes aspects of design, client and project ethos, content, marketing, development as well as hosting and general business model.

Some Webdesign
‍‍

— approaches

Design

Use images, videos, fonts and animations in a targeted manner
Rethink colors and sizes
User Journey as an aid
Responsive design
Ethics, equality and accessibility

Content & Marketing

Usability of the content
Easy to find
Useful message
Accessible content
Storytelling

Sustainable Webdesign

Sustainable Design Sources

Time to
get into ethics
& empathy.

Having reviewed the systemic context, we can now turn our attention to the user. The user, however, not as a paying consumer, but as an individual with his own needs, but also within his culture and society. Let's consider all people in our design and not just a selected segment.

Learn about ethics & empathy

A systemic &
future-oriented —
design abstract

We need systemic‍inter — connection

Page Overview

Basics aboutSystem -orientation.

Why do we need system thinking?

4 — systemicapproaches.

Circulardesign.

What is Circular Design

4 Steps ofCircular Design

Sources & Reading

DisruptiveDesign.

Disruptive Designer embraces thesesix concenpts.

Disruptive Design— methods.