Causality in designing systems
As things become digital, design is about form and system. System being defined as the interworking of several components to accomplish a minimum viable and feasible platform for products and a compelling user experience. Comparable to Maslow’s hierarchy, causality of communication, automation and socialization seem to apply when designing systems.
Communication is the foundation for automation, communication and automation the base for socialization. Features of these three levels build the logic of a system, even-though they might not be obvious for the user, not becoming part of the direct experience. A combined approach by design and engineering has to cover all three level, for socialization a new bread of virtual street worker might become part of the team.
All things communicate and tell the user, what they are about and how to use them. Communication and interaction with digital things happens in multiple ways, limiting the effort of the users and increasing usability. Intelligent things communicate in meshes and form systems with different topologies, typically as inspired by socialization. Context is maintained locally and system-wide. Intelligence is based on the context and the interaction with other digital things in the system.
Automation frees the user from dealing with repeated interactions of obvious nature. Also a certain volume of interactions and real-time requirements make automation a necessity. Automation hides complex systems and enables the user to deal with them. The user experience is equivalent to the level of automation. Think about driving cars: You don’t drive the mechanical system anymore, you drive (with) assistants automating functions.
How comes socialization in the game? Social behavior is necessary to find peers and organize topology to communicate. Automation depends on trust building and shared interest established by social behavior. Intelligent things need to understand company to behave as a system, even for such basic things as their software release status. Systems develop social relevance to become part of the social system of the user. They need to be capable to negotiate. Always aware that the system acts on behalf of its user.
Developing systems of intelligent things is a challenge, not only for designers. It’s a team challenge consisting of designers and engineers. Designers have to design stuff, the user ideally doesn’t want to interact with. The system shall manage itself, things shall manage communication and automation without bothering the user. The user shall be enabled to act and monitor on its level, but not forced to actively manage in the system. Prototypes have to cover the whole system in order to do purposeful testing of functions and experience. Including dynamics and extreme characteristics. To just simulate the front-end won’t do it.
So to reach a minimum viable product or service on top of systems, the design and development a good process better follows the causality of communication, automation and socialization. Without consideration there’ll be less value delivered, likely no sustainable use of the product and no serendipity added.
