https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140325102438-12181762-state-of-design-how-design-education-must-change/

We argued that design education must change but we didn’t say how. Today, 6 years later, we are ready to embark upon that journey.

Recently I was asked to contribute to a special issue of the new design journal, She Ji, on Design Education. I invited Michael Meyer to join me. The result was a paper called "Changing Design Education for the 21st Century," where we suggested that Design can use the procedures that allowed other fields (e.g., medicine, law, and management) to restructure their education with special attention to the framework for a family of curricula devised by Computer Science. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405872620300046

Karel Vredenburg at IBM Design offered to co-sponsor the multiple-year effort (which will require over one hundred people). The World Design Organization also asked if they could join. We enlisted a Steering Committee of senior academics and practitioners with a rich variety of backgrounds and interests from Asia, North America, and Europe.

We started in the BC years (Before COVID), which delayed our progress, but we are now ready to begin.

Please join us in rethinking design education.

The Challenge

The requirements of the 21st century are quite different than those of earlier years. New needs continually arise, along with new tools, technologies, and materials. Designers are starting to address some of the major societal issues facing the planet. Does design education prepare them to work with and lead the multidisciplinary teams required to work on these complex sociotechnical systems?

The Origins

We are embarking on a serious effort to rethink design education for the 21st century. We started with the multiple thoughtful articles in two special issues of the journal She Ji on design education (download from our website). This inspired us to assemble a team of senior designers from academia and business to serve as a steering committee to start a large effort to rethink design education.

The Working Group

Other disciplines that have restructured their curricula have required a Working Group of over a hundred people working for a year or more: this will certainly be true for the complex set of specialties called design.

To be successful, we must accommodate all beliefs and perspectives. Yes, we do need senior, well established designers, but we also need those who challenge the existing ways. Some will wish to expand and extend traditional design education. Some might wish to revolutionize it. We believe that we can do both -- not by compromises that weaken all positions, but by providing alternative paths.

The world is changing rapidly, with new views on the role of design in the world as well as a growing realization that the existing model of design practice had its historical origins in the industrialized nations of the world as a service to industry. Today’s designers have moved far beyond these historical origins. One result is greater awareness of the deterioration of the economies, environment, and culture in what has been called the “colonization of the world.” Our initial committee was too small to address these important issues: The larger composition of the Working Group will allow a major rethinking of design education.

This effort will fail without the effort being open and public, which is why we are reaching out to you. We need your participation to propose yourself as well as others for the Working Group so that we will have a rich diversity in age, gender, race, areas of interest, socioeconomic status, and political views. Nominate people who are interested in the important, but long and difficult task of changing design education. We also encourage self-nominations -- so yes, nominate yourself if you have the background, interest, and time to participate.

Help Us by Nominating Yourself or Others

To learn more about this project and the different levels of involvement, to volunteer yourself and to propose other candidates, visit our website: https://www.FutureOfDesignEducation.org/.

The Steering Committee: https://www.futureofdesigneducation.org/steeringcommittee.

This is a two-part essay, published on different days in the magazine, Fast Company.  (Note that the Fast Company editor creates the title.)

Part 1: I’m an expert on complex design systems. Even I can’t figure out recycling

Part 2: Waste is an enormous problem. But recycling is the wrong solution

The two links above get you to the two parts at Fast Company. Here is my draft.

Part 1: Why Recycling Fails

Recycling? The concept is pretty simple. Throw away stuff that can be reused, melted down, chopped up, made back into useful stuff. Problem is, I don’t understand how to recycle.

What can be recycled? It is difficult to find out what can and cannot be recycled and difficult to understand the instructions that are provided. The rules vary from location to location, and even at one location they can change from year to year.

Not only are the rules difficult to understand, but they are constantly changing (“Check frequently with your recycler to see what their current requirements are” states one of the websites that tries to be helpful.) The other problem is that there are so many different kinds of paper goods, so many different kinds of plastics, and metals, and worse of all, so many things that are combinations of materials or exotic new inventions of material scientists, that no list could possibly include every possible case.

I started to write about the recycling of milk cartons, starting off by doing some research on the topic. Alas, the more I read, the more confused I got. Most authoritative articles say yes, you can (in theory) recycle milk cartons. The Carton Council, an extremely reliable source, states that “Milk, soup, juice, wine and broth are just some of the products packaged in cartons that you’ll find in your nearby grocery store — and they’re all recyclable!” What re they made from? Regular milk cartons are made from paperboard, polyethylene, or plastic and shelf-stable cartons (aseptic) add a layer of aluminum. And yes, says the Carton Council, we should recycle all of them with plastic, metal, and glass containers. Oh, and don’t crush the carton – that makes it harder for those sorting the trash to identify it.

I can remember that. Except that it isn’t always true. Because just after this strong statement that these are all recyclable, the Carton Council presents me with a text field so I can enter my zip code to see if my community recycles cartons. (Hmm, why do I have to tell you where I live? I thought the answer was “yes.”) When I put in my zip code, my city is not listed even though the two small cities just North of my home are listed. (I don’t live in a small community: I am in San Diego, the 8^th largest city in the United States.)

It seems impossible to find the rules for my home. We are not given the standard printed handout, so I was forced to search online. But the company that collects my trash serves many locations across the United States, each one with different rules. After once again entering my street address and zip code, I was given a list of acceptable items: Yes, it says I can recycle milk cartons. But, wait, in another location on the very same page of that website (just a small scroll away), there is a list of acceptable items: milk cartons do not appear.

Paper is recyclable. So unused tissues, which are paper, should be recyclable, right? Well, some websites say “yes,” others say “no.”

Plastics. Look for the recycling symbol – that triangle with a number inside -- but even if you find it, it only adds to the confusion. Note how difficult it is to find: Sometimes it is just a very tiny triangle made of slightly raised plastic on the bottom of the item, so even if you can find it, it requires a flashlight and sometimes a magnifying class to read. But even if you can read the number, then what? The numbers that can be recycled depends upon where you live and what the recycling company is capable of doing. It also depends upon the world-wide market for recycled goods. The National Geographic Society’s newsroom has an article “7 things you didn’t know about plastic (and recycling).” https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2018/04/04/7-things-you-didnt-know-about-plastic-and-recycling/. If you thought you were confused about the recycling of plastics, read the article: when you finish, I guarantee that you will be even more confused.

Consistency trumps everything

An important rule in the design of controls for technological devices is consistency. In the auto industry, international standards govern the placement of basic controls. Imagine how dangerous it would be if every auto had their basic controls in a different location. The layout of the typewriter keyboard, the layout called “qwerty” in the United States, is standardized across most English-speaking nations. The French use azerty and the Germans use qwertz, but within any country, the keyboard in standardized. It isn’t that this is the best possible keyboard layout: it is that when everyone follows the same standards, it is easier for everyone. Those of us who must switch between keyboards for different countries can attest to the numerous errors that result.

Life would be a lot easier for us if every recycling company had the identical standards for recycling. It would be wonderful if there was a set of national standards. This, of course, would mean not allowing some companies to profess things that most other companies could not process. These “superior” companies would complain that not only had they spent a lot of money to buy the specialized equipment required, but that we were harming the environment by not recycling these other materials. In theory that is true, but consider the practice. The confusion caused by inconsistent standards means that people do not understand what is possible and, as a result violate the rules, oftentimes leading either a failure to recycle or causing entire truckloads of material to be discarded because they were contaminated. If we recycled a smaller set of materials, we might end up with a higher compliance rate, so overall, the effect would be an increase in recycling.

Standards have their own problems. It tends to lock the system into a consistent set of rules that prevents progress. And even if everyone agreed to the new standard, putting it into place would be difficult. Suppose, for example, that new technology was developed that allowed the recycling of items that contained food waste (in today’s language, we would say the items were contaminated). Even one badly contaminated can cause an entire shipment to be discarded. A solution would be to establish the new standard, but with a sufficient lead time that most companies would be able to upgrade their equipment for the new standard. In the grace period, they would not be allowed to advertise that they could accept waste that followed the new standard, because if they did, we would then have different companies with different rules – which is what the introduction of standards was supposed to prevent. Is this a workable solution” You decide.

When I was a VP at Apple, I was often criticized because my solution to each major problem we faced was to recommend a redesign. The criticism was valid, because even though the suggested redesign would eliminate the problem (and produce other benefits), the change would be expensive. Worse, the changes might confuse our customers and even make some existing applications unworkable. Once a system is in place, it is difficult to make changes: This is called the legacy problem.

And when I was at Apple, developers would tell me they had a better way of doing things than our standards allowed. I would often agree but hold them to those standards anyway. Yes, the new way might be better for that one application, but if every application used different methods, chaos would reign.

Well, chaos reigns in recycling. It is time to change.

Part 2: Why Recycling is the Wrong Answer to the Problem of Waste

I am a designer, proud to be one of the developers of what is today called “Human-Centered Design (HCD).” That is design that always starts off understanding the needs, capabilities, and desires of people. Human-Centered Design has four basic principles, all four of which are being violated by the craze to recycle.

1.      Focus on the people

2.      Solve the underlying problem, not the symptoms

3.      Everything is part of a system: Design for the system

4.      Prototype ideas, test, and refine them, over and over again.

Every one of the principles of HCD is violates in today’s world of recycling.

Do recyclers focus upon the people? Obviously not. Everything about recycling lacks any attempt to make it understandable and easy for people to obey the proper rules. We find it difficult to find the rules that apply to where we live. The rules are continually changing. The rules that are applied where we live are often different from those where we work—or wherever we might be. And even when we find the rules, we cannot always understand them.

Recycling is only one small part of the entire system. It starts with the mining and drilling that allows us to extract the raw materials from the earth. Then it includes the complex mechanical and chemical processing to make raw materials usable. To lower costs and enhance performance, new materials are invented as well as clever combinations of existing materials. We meld wood and leather, paper, plastic, metal, and cloth. When the manufactured goods, are shipped, they are often placed in complex boxes and packing made from material that may not be recyclable. The system is not designed to solve the problem: The system is the problem.

Yes, many companies do test and refine their products to make sure that they deliver the required value, understanding, and enjoyment. But the product is more than the product: the product is part of a system, and it is the system that is destroying the environment the communities and the planet in which we live.

However, the real culprit in the story of recycling is failure to identify the core, underlying problem. Recycling is the symptom. The underlying core issue lies in the design and manufacturing of so much stuff that has to be discarded. Recycling is a poor attempt to solve the symptoms!

Recycling is the Symptom: The Fundamental Problem Lies in Neglect of the System

The fundamental principle of human-centered design is that the entire purpose of our products is to make people’s lives better and more enjoyable. Manufacturers may have these goals for their products, but that only addresses one small part of the system. The system includes everything: mining the core materials and transporting them. Manufacturing, advertising, delivery, packaging, servicing, and disposal. Companies are very concerned about cost and productivity of their workers. There is insufficient concern about the difficulty to people and to society. Indeed, manufacturers often say “these are not our concern, these are up to our customers.”  Nonsense, I say.

The problem with recycling starts with the choice of materials used to build the product. The materials are optimized for performance and cost, but almost never is the societal cost considered: cost to the environment in mining and manufacturing the materials; cost to the environment in manufacturing the product; cost to the environment in shipping, selling, and packaging the product; and then the cost and difficulties disposing at the end of its life cycle. Why don’t we require manufacturers to consider the costs to the environment (and the side effect of poisoning the waterways and ground). Why are so many of the objects we buy non-repairable? Designed to use and throw away, instead of use and reuse. Our items should be designed for the betterment of society and the environment. This would lead to less material to be recycled and, moreover, greater ease in reuse.

In 1971, the (then) famous designer, Victor Papanek wrote his book “Design for the real world: human ecology and social change.”  Here are some excerpts from the opening paragraph of that book:

There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them. … by creating whole new species of permanent garbage to clutter up the landscape, and by choosing materials and processes that pollute the air we breathe, designers have become a dangerous breed.

I only disagree with two things. First, I replace the words “industrial design” with “design.” In 1971 Industrial Designers were indeed the main culprits, but today the blame has to be more widely distributed. But second, I disagree with the placement of all of the blame upon designers. Most designers are in mid-level layers of authority. They have little choice but to follow the dictates of their bosses or their clients. The real blame belongs to the business culture.

I do not see an attempt to use materials that are readily reusable. I see that the designers and manufacturers are free to do whatever they wish: the burden is placed upon the citizens of the world: Recycle or be punished! Even though the rules are incomplete, continually changing, and different for different collection agencies. Why are the people who purchase the stuff to blame? We seldom have any choice in the matter. Want some water – we are given single-use cups or plastic bottles. Want to purchase a computer or cellphone? We are forced to buy phones made out of multiple complex materials, that are difficult to get at, difficult to repair, and difficult to recycle. Worse, it is expected that we discard our phone and purchase new ones every few years. If we want to clean up the environment, we must clean up the system, starting with the manufacturers.

We need to rethink the wide variety of materials used for our products. How about requiring batteries to be replaceable and recyclable in standardized sizes so that they could be easily replaced. Today even though the electrical requirements are somewhat standard, batteries sizes and their enclosures are sometimes designed for a specific model of the device making it difficult to find the proper replacement. How about requiring that all products have easily replaceable components and that they be easily dismantled for quality recycling.

I am not the only person making this plea. A simple search on the internet for variations of the words “recycling” “Complexity” “mixed materials” yields more articles than can be read. Eco Watch has an article on “the complex and frustrating reality of recycling plastic. Leyla Acaroglu in Medium argues that “Yes, recycling is broken,” concluding that “The undeniable issue is that we have created a disposable culture, and no amount of recycling will fix it. We need to remedy this illness at the root cause: producer-enforced disposability and the rapid increase of a throwaway culture being normal (with the phrase “throwaway culture” leading to a National Geographic article on “Why our throwaway culture has to end.”

Other countries are leading the way. Germany, for example, requires automobile manufacturers to take back and recycle end-of-life vehicles. In fact, Germany is one of the leading nations in the world in terms of the amount of material that is put into recycling bins. Note the phrasing: “put into the bins.”  Putting something into the bin does not lead to recycling. An article by the German media company dw.compoints out that of the 3 million tons of plastic packaging waste, a little less than half (48.8%) was put into bins, but only 38% of that was actually recycled. Why? Here we go again: because recycling is far too complex for ordinary people to understand. In Germany half of the non-plastic rubbish is put into the bins for plastic. Recycling is important, but it is done badly. Then again, it is not the solution to the underlying problem of the creation of so much stuff that has to be discarded.

All the many people and organizations that are banding together to prevent the manufacturing of non-reusable stuff is wonderful. I applaud the effort and wish to strengthen their arguments by adding the viewpoint of human-centered design. Single use plastics and complex materials may appear to be simpler to use and cheaper for the companies, but they neglect the impact upon ordinary people, the very people who are the customers of the industries that have created this mess. Moreover, industry does not have to bear the extra costs to the environment that they are causing that is left up to the countries and municipalities as well as to individuals. We are blamed for the problems caused by industry.

We need to stop the cause and stop our fussing upon the symptoms. Solve the root, underlying cause and the symptoms will disappear. Yes, just as in an illness, it is still necessary to treat the symptoms. Both healthcare and the environment do need band aids and quick methods to relieve the symptoms. But in both healthcare and the environment, unless we all stop the underlying cause, the diseases to both people and the environment will continue to flourish.

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Don Norman wears many hats, including Professor and Director of the Design lab at UC San Diego, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group, professor (Harvard, UC San Diego, Northwestern, KAIST, Tongji), business exec (former VP at Apple, executive at HP), on company boards and company advisor, and author of best-selling books on design: Emotional Design, Living with Complexity, and Design of Everyday Things. Learn more at jnd.org.

Michael Meyer and I have written a guide for changing how designers are educated, published in a special issue of the Journal She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, devoted to Design Education, edited by Guillermina Noël (Ken Friedman is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal). Together with our friends at IBM Design, we intend to implement the strategy outlined in the paper. We have recruited 10 senior designers to help us get started, people who represent a mixture of disciplines, different regions of the world, practitioners, and academics. These ten will help us create a body of approximately 100 people who will discuss and plan a platform for curricula. This will take a year or more and might very well involved several hundred people.  Stay tuned.

The entire issue is available at the URL below: This is an open-access journal -- no payment or registration is required. The Meyer & Norman paper is part of the issue and can be downloaded at
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/vol/6/issue/1.

Meyer, M., & Norman, D. (2020, March). Changing design education for the 21st century. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 6 (March), 13-39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2019.12.002

Changing Design Education for the 21st Century

Michael W. Meyer and Don Norman

Design Lab, University of California, San Diego

Highlights

• Designers can bring special value to almost all organizations: governments, Non
• Government Organizations (NGOs), businesses, healthcare, etc.
• The current system of design education seldom prepares students for the challenges that they will face.
• The most valuable elements of the designer’s perspective and process are seldom taught.
• Other learned professions such as medicine, law, and business provide excellent advice and guidance embedded within their own histories of professionalization.
• To make changes requires a major long-term effort to develop a platform of design and educational practices.
• We call for a program to move the design profession capable of fully realizing the value of design in the 21st century.

Abstract

Designers are entrusted with increasingly complex and impactful challenges. However, the current system of design education does not always prepare students for these challenges.

Designers are moving into new areas, many of which require management, social, technological, and political skills never before thought of as the responsibility of design. Not only has technology increased and changed dramatically in recent decades, but society has become more and more concerned with weighty global issues, such as hunger, health, education. Design skills for developing creative solutions to complex problems are becoming more and more essential. Businesses are starting to recognize that designers bring something special to the work—a rational belief based upon numerous studies that link business success to a design-driven approach. These are all powerful opportunities, yet we are not always training our students appropriately.

When we examine what and how our system teaches young designers, we discover that the most valuable elements of the designer’s perspective and process are seldom taught. Instead, some designers grow beyond their education through their experience working in industry, essentially learning by accident. Many design programs still maintain an insular perspective and an inefficient mechanism of tacit knowledge transfer.

So, what are we to do? Other learned professions such as medicine, law, and business provide excellent advice and guidance embedded within their own histories of professionalization. In this article, we borrow from their experiences to recommend a course of action for design. It will not be easy: it will require a study group to make recommendations for a roster of design and educational practices that schools can use to build a curriculum that matches their goals and abilities. And then it will require a conscious effort to bootstrap the design profession toward both a robust practitioner community and an effective professoriate, capable together of fully realizing the value of design in the 21st century. In this article, we lay out that path.

My essay in Fast Company, to which their editors gave the title:
This Is the One Skill Designers Need to Develop Most in 2020. Legendary designer Don Norman takes designers to task for elevating craft above all else, when what matters most is the willingness to collaborate.

On what it takes to succeed in a company – a willingness to collaborate. To recognize that engineers, marketing, sales, manufacturing, and business executives all play essential roles. Each has a valid perspective and to be successful, one must learn to balance the conflicting views and select a course that is best for the product, the customer, and the company, even if it means discarding one's favorite ideas, sketches, and designs.

https://medium.com/fast-company/this-is-the-one-skill-designers-need-to-develop-most-in-2020-c0ee1bb82955

1. Ensuring that we solve the core, root issues, not just the problem as presented to us (which is often the symptom, not the cause)
2. Focusing on people
3. Taking a systems point of view, realizing that most complications result from the interdependencies of the multiple parts
4. Continually testing and refining our proposals, ensuring they truly meet the needs of the people for whom they are intended

The Four Principles of Human-Centered Design

1. Understand and Address the Core Problems.

Solve the fundamental, underlying issues, not the symptoms. We recommend starting with field studies and observations of actual practice (an applied ethnography). Ask “why?” at each issue. When the answer is “human error,” keep going: why did the error occur, what could have prevented it? Core issues often include the people’s lack of understanding of the complexity an of the entire system, misaligned resources and reward structures, and the disruptions caused by the work environment, with frequent interruptions, conflicting requirements, overly-complex technology, and the need for multiple transitions among technologies systems, and people leading to continual interruptions as well as lack of complete communication between elements.

2. Be People-Centered.

Much of today’s systems, procedures, and devices are technology-centered, designed around the capabilities of the technology with people being asked to fill in the parts that the technology cannot do. People-centered means changing this, starting with the needs and abilities of people. It means considering all the people who are involved, taking account of the history, culture, beliefs, and environment of the community. The best way to do this is to let those who live in the community provide the answers.

People-centered means considering all the people who are involved. Using healthcare as an example, this means patients and their families, general practitioners, specialists, technicians, nurses, pharmacists, community supports, and the various staff who schedule and support the activity. There is need for careful observation of individuals doing their routine work, including between clinics, laboratories, and site locations. As boundaries erode between clinical care, public health, and the community, there will be a need to observe the engagement with businesses supporting healthcare and policy makers regulating care. In domains outside of healthcare, similar principles apply.

3. Use an Activity-Centered Systems Approach.

Design must focus upon the entire activity under consideration, not just isolated components. Moreover, activities do not exist in isolation: They are components of complex sociotechnical systems. Fixing or improving a small, local issue is often beneficial, but local optimization can result in sub-optimal global results. Focusing upon support of the activities is more important than optimization of the individual components. Systems involve multiple complex feedback and feed-forward loops, some with time delays measured in days or months. There are often tensions, conflicts, and differing perspectives among the multiple participants. Potential solutions have to be developed with the assistance and buy-in from all parties. Experts can provide essential analyses and approaches, but unless those most affected by the issues play a major role, in assuring that the suggestions are appropriate to the culture, the environment, and the capabilities and goals of the community, the results are apt to be unworkable and unsatisfactory.

4. Use Rapid Iterations of Prototyping and Testing.

Whatever the initial suggestions are for innovation or improvement, they probably are imperfect, incomplete, too difficult or expensive to implement, or unsuitable for the particular location. Implementation of changes requires patience and fortitude to try numerous trials, rethinking and repeating until the outcomes are good enough for deployment. We find that people accept repeated trials if they are active participants in their design and evaluation, where the trials are understood to be tests, not solutions, and where each is done quickly. Human-centered design starts with quick approximations, often having participants play-act the workings, providing rapid feedback. With each iteration the prototype becomes more refined and usable. Note that these tests must be applied to the intended recipients. Administrators and those responsible for devising the ideas under test should be (unobtrusive) observers, not participants.

The Complexities of Application

When we apply the human-centered design principles to the large, complex, needs of the world, several modifications must be made. Three areas are of special note:

A. Large complex, sociotechnical systems. When major political, economic, social and cultural variables interact, it is best to proceed slowly, with incremental, opportunistic steps.

B. The need for understanding. Modern automated technology can provide powerful answers, but its operations is often impenetrable (opaque) to both experts and affected citizens. This reduces faith and trust in the results. We need systems that provide understandable explanations.

C. Cultural sensitivity. The results must be sensitive to history, culture, and belief structures. This means that technologists and domain specialists are not enough: the local communities have to be involved in determining the outcomes.

These are all difficult issues. We believe that they require the combination of Bottom-Up and Top-Down approaches to solve. Experts provide the tools for analysis and for understanding. It will be experts that modify the opaque automation to make it a better fit to human understanding. These are top-down approaches.  But then, it will be individual people and communities who understand their own cultures and environments who can best apply the knowledge of experts. This is the bottom-up component. Both are needed. Each supplements and complements the other.

A. Large complex, sociotechnical systems

Complex systems cannot be treated in the same way as traditional design projects, which tend to be small and self-contained (e.g., a device, an interface, a procedure).  In 2014, concerned about how design could apply to the large, complex sociotechnical systems of the world, several of us wrote an opening manifesto (Friedman, et al, 2014) and then convened a workshop in Shanghai at Tongji University’s College of Design and Innovation to discuss the issues. We named the design techniques required for these issues DesignX. Afterwards P.J. Stappers and I wrote a paper that summarized our findings (Norman and Stappers, 2016).

DesignX tackles the design challenges of complex sociotechnical systems such as healthcare, transportation, governmental policy, and environmental protection. We concluded that the major challenges did not come from a lack of understanding of the issues, but rather the complexity of implementation, when political, economic, cultural, organizational, and structural problems overwhelm all else. We suggested that designers must play an active role in implementation, testing proposals through small, incremental steps. Thereby minimizing budgets and the resources required for each step and reducing political, social, and cultural disruptions. This approach requires tolerance for existing constraints and trade-offs, and a modularity that allows for measures that do not compromise the whole. These designs satisfice rather than optimize and are related to the technique of making progress by “muddling through,” a form of incrementalism championed by Lindblom (1959, 1979).

Today, I would modify the recommendations by adding lessons discussed below in Section C: The Problem with experts.

B. Opaque, non-explanatory automation

For proposals to be acceptable, they must be understandable, both in what is being proposed and also as to the reasons for the proposal. Modern decisions tools, especially those of statistical decision making, machine learning, and the deep-learning systems of neural networks are unable to provide explanations of why and how they reached their proclamations. The resulting lack of understanding reduces trust and makes experts and every people alike, wary of following the recommendations for fear that the process might have ignored or over emphasized critical attributes.

Note that over-trust can be more dangerous than under-trust.

Our systems must be designed to produce appropriate communication with those impacted by the recommendations. Explanations must be readily available in a format easily understood by the target population). An important component of explanation is the existence of an easy to understand and interpret conceptual model of the system, for without a good model, there is apt to be misunderstanding or incomprehension. (A misunderstanding can be worse than a lack of understanding, because in the first case, people do not recognize that their view is erroneous, whereas in the second case, they know that they do not know.)  

Conceptual models do not have to be completely accurate. The models simply have to be “good enough” to guide appropriate behavior, even if oversimplified. In similar fashion, complex systems do not need a single, comprehensive model: there can be different conceptual models for different aspects of the system.

C. Expert advice that is divorced from history, culture, and belief structures

We need experts to ensure that the facts and critical attributes are addressed, but we should leave the methods to those who are immediately affected. Example: An expert is needed to tell us how long to boil equipment to sterilize  it (the duration depends upon the altitude). But we should let the community that is impacted decide how to boil the water,

Complex problems do not have simple solutions. Moreover, each community has a unique history and a mix of cultures and belief structures and different socio-economic status. These differences can lead to major conflicts within the community. When experts come to the community to provide assistance, unless they are particularly sensitive to these issues, their suggestions are apt to be rejected, or if applied, fail to provide the desired result (Easterly, 2013).

Some of the conflicts are powerful and apparently unresolvable, having exited for decades or even centuries, resisting many attempts to settle them. Others, however, are less deeply embedded. Even so, experts are often insufficiently aware of the special needs, circumstances, and abilities of the people they are trying to assist. Decades of attempts by foreign experts to assist have yielded some successes but many more failures. There are thousands of scholarly articles, books, and white papers on the topic attesting to these difficulties.

We propose  different approach: bottom-up development, building upon the creativity and deep self-knowledge of the people who need assistance. Instead of experts we propose to encourage and facilitate the power and creativity of the individuals who live in the areas under concern.

Experts often are insensitive to the social, cultural, and historical attributes of the people, often believing that their expertise applies to the problems independently of the location, geography, or details of the local inhabitants. As a result, their advice often does not fit the thought patterns of people in the society, and moreover, may require educational levels they do not posses as well as critical infrastructure that may be limited, for example, electricity, heating and air-conditioning, clean water, adequate sewerage, may not always be available. When specialized devices are required, if they break, the local population cannot repair them  either because they are not familiar with the technology or because spare parts are not available.  When people design their own solutions, they can take account of all these variables.

If the people can decide, even if they come up with the same, identical solution as the expert people or machines, they will trust them, implement them, and abide with them.

When people determine their own fate, they are much more acceptance of the results, even if they are actually identical to what experts had proposed. Sometimes citizens will propose workable solutions that experts never thought of. Democratizing design is a part of the general movement toward citizen science: building upon the creativity and intelligence of everyday people.

We propose an approach of facilitation, providing assistance when asked with tools, toolkits, and instructional material. Moreover, when local implementations prove useful, we will help spread the word, through open-source distribution of knowledge by whatever medium is most appropriate: workshops, books, videos, or internet open source knowledge pods. Think of Wikipedia, Kahn Academy, or other repositories, self built, created by many individuals, with a minimum of overhead and supervisory controls.

Acknowledgements

These ideas have been developed with the aid of many people. Parts of this essay have been taken (in modified form) from Chapter 6 of Design of Everyday Things (Norman, 2013) and from a talk given at the world Government Summit, Dubai, UAE (Norman & Spencer, 2019)

References

Easterly, W. (2013). The tyranny of experts: economists, dictators, and the forgotten rights of the poor. New York: Basic Books.  

Friedman, K., Lou, Y., Norman, D., Stappers, P. J., Voûte, E., & Whitney, P. (2014). DesignX: A Future Path for Design. In. Retrieved from http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/designx_a_future_pa.html

Lindblom, C. E. (1959). The science of 'muddling through'. Public Administration Review, 19, 79–88.   https://faculty.washington.edu/mccurdy/SciencePolicy/Lindblom%20Muddling%20Through.pdf

Lindblom, C. E. (1979). Still muddling, not yet through. Public Administration Review, 39, 517-526.   https://www.dropbox.com/s/88ql7df4odsp9mz/Lindbloom%2C%20C.%20Still%20Muddling%201979.pdf?dl=0

Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things: Revised and expanded edition. New York; London: Basic Books; MIT Press (British Isles only).  

Norman, D., & Spencer, E. (2019). Community-based, Human-Centered Design. Paper presented at the 2019 World Government Summit, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. https://jnd.org/community-based-human-centered-design/

Norman, D., & Stappers, P. J. (2016). DesignX: Complex Sociotechnical Systems. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 1, 83-106.   http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240587261530037X

Verganti, R., & Norman, D. (2019, July 16, 2019). Why criticism is good for creativity. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/07/why-criticism-is-good-for-creativity  (May require registration or payment.)

One of the most popular mantras for innovation is “avoid criticism.” The underlying assumption is that criticism kills the flow of creativity and the enthusiasm of a team. Aversion to criticism has significantly spread in the last 20 years, especially through the advocates of design thinking. (In 1999, in the ABC Nightline video “The Deep Dive,” which ignited the design thinking movement, criticism was stigmatized as negative.) In IDEO’s online teaching platform, the first rule of brainstorming is “defer judgment.” To make this rule even more practical and straightforward, others have reworded it to say: “When a person proposes an idea, don’t say, ‘Yes, but…’ to point out flaws in the idea; instead, say, ‘Yes, and…’” — which is intended to get people to add to the original idea.

We challenge this approach. It encourages design by committee and infuses a superficial sense of collaboration that leads to compromises and weakens ideas. Our view, the product of years of studies of and participation in innovation projects, is that effective teams do not defer critical reflection; they create through criticism.

We therefore propose a different approach: the rule of “Yes, but, and.” To explain how this rule works, let’s first discuss why criticism alone (“Yes, but…”) and ideation alone (“Yes, and…”) do not work.

The rule of “Yes, but.” The problem with this rule is that ideas, even if truly exceptional, often have major flaws. This is especially true for the most innovative ones because they dive into unexplored spaces. If someone uses the existence of a flaw to kill the idea, a great innovation may be missed.

The rule of “Yes, and.” The notion of building on an idea, rather than criticizing it, in order to maintain a creative flow might sound like a good thing. Yet without critical feedback, you would hardly understand why your original idea did not work. You would perceive the new proposal as an unrelated diversion or, most likely, a different conflicting perspective. And the team would miss the opportunity to dive deeply into the original idea. It’s moving forward without progress.

The rule of “Yes, but, and.” We suggest combining the best features of criticism with the best of ideation. When you propose Idea A, a colleague first addresses what he perceives to be a flaw in it, provides constructive feedback (this is the “but”), and then suggests a possible way to overcome or avoid the flaw, yielding Idea B (this is the “and”). Then you do the same: You acknowledge Idea B, provide a constructive critique, and develop a new, even more improved result. Others can jump in with their critiques and proposals during the process. This kind of constructive interaction encourages a deep cycle of critical dialogues that can lead to a coherent, breakthrough idea.

Note that the “but” anticipating the “and” is essential. In order to build on your idea, your colleague does not just add a new improved proposal. First, she provides a critique, which enables you to receive precious and specific information, see weaknesses in your half-backed idea you couldn’t spot yourself, and therefore learn. You and the entire team will then be ready to dive deeper into the next iteration. It is the combination of “but” and “and” that creates real progress, enabling the team to see both positive and negative components and allowing each iteration to go even deeper into the analysis.

To create breakthroughs, it is necessary to leverage the contrasts that come from critique instead of escaping them. In her research on the power of dissent, Charlan Nemeth shows that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas; rather, they stimulate them. Progress requires clashing and fusing — not compromising or postponing — different perspectives.

Francesca Gino rightfully maintains that criticism works only when it leads to enhancing and improving an idea. A key element in this process is respectful listening and acknowledgment of the talent and abilities of colleagues. When the “but” becomes an attack on the other idea (or even worse, on the other person), then the result is detrimental. Adding “and” to the “but” fosters constructive and positive criticism, turning it from an idea-killing phrase into a way of expanding the flow of creativity rather than stopping it.

Critique, Creativity, Curiosity

The rule of “Yes, but, and” must be performed with care and a significant dose of discipline. Here are a few simple guidelines.

First, when you critique another’s ideas, you need to tap into your creative mind as deeply as possible.

• When you see a weakness in the idea, don’t simply say, “This does not work.” Rather, first explain the problem and then propose an improvement that would make it work.
• When you do not understand the idea, don’t simply say, “That’s unclear to me.” Instead, first point to the specific spot that is unclear and then propose possible alternative interpretations: “Do you mean X or Y?” This helps all participants to see more detailed options.
• When you like the idea, do not just take it as it is. Instead, search for possible improvements and then push forward to make it even better.

Second, when you listen to someone’s critique of your idea, you should try to learn from it. A practical way is to listen carefully to the critique, be curious, and wonder, “Why is my colleague suggesting this contrasting view that is not in line with what I see? Perhaps there is an even more powerful idea hidden behind our two perspectives.” The critique becomes a positive force, focusing the team on overcoming its weaknesses and enhancing the original idea.

The secret of criticism in innovation lies in the joint behavior of the participants. Those offering criticism must frame their points as positive, helpful suggestions. Those who are being criticized must use critiques to learn and improve their ideas. When conducted with curiosity and respect, criticism becomes the most advanced form of creativity. It can be fascinating, passionate, fun, and always inspiring. Let us combine “Yes, and” with “Yes, but” to create the constructive and positive “Yes, but, and.”

Roberto Verganti is a professor of leadership and innovation at Politecnico di Milano, a board member of the European Innovation Council, and the author of Overcrowded. Designing Meaningful Products in a World Awash with Ideas. Don Norman is a professor and director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design. He previously was a vice president at Apple.

Added afterwards

Here is a wonderfully witty (and informative) YouTube video by Jonah Lehrer explaining why the no criticism rule is wrong, discussing the scientific evidence. (It is fun to watch and only 2 minutes, 20 seconds long.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgPIkx2JyQU

(Thanks to Nathan Crilly of the UK's University of Cambridge for telling me about the film)

The original title was "Delightful products for healthy aging," but the Editor changed it to be "I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me."   Yes,that is true, but the horror is not restricted to products for the elderly. Anyway, it got published under that title. Too late to do anything about it.

More people than ever are living long, healthy lives. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the average life expectancy is 78.6 years for men and 81.1 for women. More relevant, however, is that as people grow older, their total life expectancy increases. So for those who are now 65, the average life expectancy is 83 for men and over 85 for women. And because I’m 83, I’m expected to live past 90 (but I’m aiming a lot higher than that). And these are averages, which means that perhaps half of us will live even longer.

Those of us who are still active and healthy at advanced ages–I qualify–discover that we aren’t quite as capable as our younger selves. That doesn’t mean that we aren’t healthy and workable–I still have a very active job and travel on business around the world, but I have to admit that I’m getting slower and weaker, with diminished eyesight, hearing, taste, touch, and, well, almost everything physical. The number of active, healthy oldsters is large–and increasing. We are not a niche market. And businesses should take note: We are good customers often with more free time and discretionary income than younger people.

Despite our increasing numbers the world seems to be designed against the elderly.

The entire article is available on the Fast Company website: https://www.fastcompany.com/90338379/i-wrote-the-book-on-user-friendly-design-what-i-see-today-horrifies-meQ

Life Hacks for the Elderly

As an addendum to the article, note that numerous people have developed tricks to help manage their lives. Simply search for "life hacks for the elders" on your favorite search engine. You will be surprised at the number of sites and the useful tips.  To make your life easier, let me Google that for you (LMGTFY): just clock on this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=life+hacks+for+elders

How do we address the major societal issues of our time?  Many institutions, groups, and foundations have tried to address these issues for decades, spending billions of dollars. Many of these projects have failed.

Our analyses suggest three issues:

1. Domain Experts

While domain experts understand the issues, their recommendations require huge investment over long periods. Worse, their recommendations are often insensitive to local conditions: culture, capabilities, and requirements.

2. Community Experts

The affected communities often contain many industrious, creative people who have already addressed the issues they face. These people are extremely sensitive to the local culture, capabilities, and requirements.  However, they often address the symptoms rather than the underlying causes and they do not have the resources to examine the entire system. Addressing the symptoms is important, but unless the underlying cause is treated, the symptoms are apt to recur. In addition, the solutions to the small, local issues do not always translate into global optimization.

3. Large Projects

Large projects require huge investment over long periods. They impact many people, and even if most are benefitted, the ones who are not raise political objections. This leads to long fights and many compromises. Worse, the political administration is apt to change several times during the duration of the project, leading to more political debates and more modifications. And finally, during the long period of work, the situation may change, with new constraints, new possibilities and opportunities, and new issues. But large projects are difficult to change in mid-projet.

Solution? A Four-Pronged Approach

We propose combining the bottom-up (community driven) approach with the top-down (domain experts), thus taking advantage of the virtues of each approach while compensating for the deficiencies.). Let the community experts design solutions, while facilitated, coached, and mentored by the domain experts, thus gaining the best of both worlds.

This still leaves the problem of large projects. We suggest following the advice of Richard Lindblom, a political scientist who advocated opportunistic incrementalism. That is, use expert knowledge to analyze the entire system to determine the goal. Then wait until an opportunity strikes to do a small, incremental step in the desired direction. Small projects do not evoke large political opposition. If they succeed, it is then easier to get the next opportunity. If it does not succeed, it can be treated as a learning exercise, and it is small enough not to trigger a large scale political reaction.  We recommend that the small projects be led and designed by the community experts, assisted by domain experts where appropriate, thus guaranteeing both effectiveness and appropriateness (and buy-in) by the community. Moreover, by incremental, relatively small projects, the process is flexible, making it easy to change when conditions change.

Finally, we are strong advocates of the principles of human-centered design (HCD), where HCD is considered a way of thinking, relevant to any domain or situation. The four principles are:

1. Focus on the people. Most projects optimize economics, efficiency, time, or productivity. We emphasize the experiences of all the people who are impacted, because if this is done, the rest will follow at a level that "satisfices."

2. Treat the underlying causal factors, not the symptoms. How far should one go in the search for the causal factor? Go to as fundamental a level that can still be addressed within the scope of the project. For some projects, this will be shallow. But even here, any success will allow future iterations to go deeper.

3. Treat the issues as part of a large, complex sociotechnical system. Consider the system implications. This is difficult because large systems often have multiple feedback and feed-forward loops, many of which are non-linear and with long delays, sometimes measured in hours, sometimes in decades. Moreover, large systems are likely to be dynamic, so a solution that works today may not in future years.

4. Continually evaluate and modify. Iterate on solutions. Measure results. This helps with two issues. First, with complex issues, the initial attempts will never be correct. A flexible system can continually adjust. Second, conditions will change, the system will change. New opportunities will arise, as will new difficulties. By moving in small, incremental steps, it is relatively easy to modify the goals and approaches.

What We Are Doing

We have multiple projects that involve various components of these ideas. Key problems to be addressed include:

• access to healthcare
• sustainable growth
• access to education
• access to resources
• environmental stewardship
• resilient culture

Projects

• LAUNCH (the project illustrated by the figures of this essay), is a joint effort of the national Cancer Institute, the Federal Communications Commission, the University of Kentucky Cancer Center and our Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego with an industrial partner, Amgen.

• The Gut Instinct Project. A large project at  UC San Diego's Design Lab and the Department of Pediatrics exploring the effectiveness of community- and citizen-driven science.

• Exploring, Defining, & Advancing Community-Driven Design for Social Impact. A workshop at the ACM's Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS 2019), June 23-28, 2019. To be held at UC San Diego.
• Learning Tools for Independent, Informal, Life-Long Education. A joint project between UC San Diego and partners in Bangalore, India (in planning).
• Developing partnerships: In discussion with multiple existing organizations and projects on societal design, societal platforms, food, and the environment.

Summary

How can we best address the large, complex sociotechnical problems facing the world? We advocate a multi-step approach combining bottom-up community-driven wisdom with the top-down knowledge of  domain experts, thus taking advantage of the virtues of each approach while compensating for the deficiencies. To this we add an opportunistic, incremental approach to large problems (muddling through), followed by continual attention to the fundamental principles of human-centered design.

• Top-down, domain experts
• Bottom-up community experts
• Opportunistic, incremental projects.
• Always focussing upon the people, the underlying causal factors, the system, and employing agile, flexible design strategy governed by evidence.

References and Reading List:

The United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

The Council of Europe’s Expansions and Interpretations

https://www.coe.int/en/web/programmes/un-2030-agenda

Bottom-up design

Manzini, E. (2015). Design, when everybody designs: an introduction to design for social innovation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Myerson, J. (2016). Scaling Down: Why Designers Need to Reverse Their Thinking. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 2(4), 288-299. doi:10.1016/j.sheji.2017.06.001

Norman, D., & Spencer, E. (2019). Community based, human-centered design. https://jnd.org/community-based-human-centered-design/.

von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Muddling Through (Opportunistic incrementalism) & Large Projects

Bendor, J. (2015). Incrementalism: Dead yet Flourishing. Public Administration Review, 75(2), 194-205. doi:10.1111/puar.12333

Flach, J. M., Feufel, M. A., Reynolds, P. L., Parker, S. H., & Kellogg, K. M. (2017). Decision making in practice: The dynamics of muddling through. Applied Ergonomics, 63(2017), 133-141.

Lindblom, C. E. (1959). The science of 'muddling through'. Public Administration Review, 19, 79–88.

Lindblom, C. E. (1979). Still muddling, not yet through. Public Administration Review, 39, 517-526.

Norman, D., & Stappers, P. J. (2016). DesignX: Complex Sociotechnical Systems. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 1, 83-106.

Critiques of Current AID Programs

Easterly, W. (2013). The tyranny of experts: economists, dictators, and the forgotten rights of the poor. New York: Basic Books

Papanek, V. J. (1971, 1984). Design for the real world: human ecology and social change. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.

Ramalingam, B. (2013). Aid on the edge of chaos : rethinking international cooperation in a complex world Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Our Current Projects

Hekler, E. B., Taylor, J. C., Dow, S. P., Morris, M., Grant, F. J., Phatak, S. S., . . . Lewis, D. (2019). Exploring, Defining, & Advancing Community-Driven Design for Social Impact. A workshop at the ACM's Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS 2019), June 23-28, 2019. To be held at UC San Diego.

Klesges, L. (2018). 3062.0 - Invited Session: Launching User-Centered Design and Connected Health Communication via Public-Private Partnerships to Reduce Cancer Inequities. Paper session at the American Public Health Association 2018 Annual Meeting (APHA 2018). Three papers were presented in this session:

1. 3062.0 Why L.A.U.N.C.H.? Rationale for a Connected Health Collaborative to Demonstrate User-Centered Design Improvements in Cancer Communication. Bradford Hesse, NCI, and David Ahern, FCC
2. 3062.0 Better Together: A Private Partner View of Collaborative Partnerships to Drive Meaningful Changes in Cancer Outcomes. Sadie Whittaker, ScienceOne and Victoria Atencio-Goldin
3. 3062.0 Demonstrating Effective Outcomes in L.A.U.N.C.H.: An Applied Example from Appalachian Kentucky. Robin Vanderpool, University of Kentucky College of Public Health and Melanie McComsey, University of California, San Diego

Pandey, V., Debeliu, J., Hyd, E. R., Kosciolek, T., Knight, R., & Klemmer, S. (2018). Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training. Paper presented at the ACM Learning at Scale 2018 conference, London. https://gutinstinct-prod.ucsd.edu

Videos of talks

I've given a number of talks on this. Here are two, one to a Design Conference in Seattle (Interact 19), the other to the World Government Summit in Dubai, UAE in February 2019.

• 21st Century design: addressing societal issues (Interactions 19 in Seattle. 26 minutes)

Slides (a PDF file)

More slides than I would use in any talk (I prefer to give talks without any slides). But readers may find them useful. (PDF of slides)

Acknowledgements

I have been influenced by the works of many colleagues. I owe much to continual discussions with Design Lab members Eliah Abramoff-Spencer (Eli Spencer), Steven Dow, and Eric Hekler. Eric von Hippel of MIT, has been especially insightful and helpful, including his month-long visit to the UC San Diego Design lab. And then through the writings of Ezio Manzini, Jeremy Myerson and, although I never met him, Victor Papanek (Manzini, 2015; Myerson, 2016; Papanek, 1971, 1984; von Hippel, 2005 among his many publications).

The formal call for participation is here. Submissions are due May 1, 2019. Send proposals to both Eric Hekler AND Jennifer Taylor: ehekler@ucsd.edu, jtaylor@eng.ucsd.edu

See: Heckler, Taylor, Dow, Morris, Grant, Phatak, and Norman (2019). Exploring, Defining, & Advancing Community-Driven Design for Social Impact

The 20 minute version for my talk at Dubai, UAE (World Government Summit, February 2019)

My hour-long talk at the National Institue of Design, Ahmedabad, India/