Are you a reductionist or a holist in your design approach?
A short and a very personal take on the philosophy of design and the different ways to view and interpret the world we are designing for.
Whether we are aware of it or not, in anything we do with respect to design: user research, strategy or the act of designing itself, we are following a philosophy, with which we approach the task. Waterfall is rooted in philosophy. So is agile. And Design Thinking. This underlying philosophy determines the way in which we see the world and the project at hand.
You can see the project it terms of the properties of its elements determining the behavior of the entire system. We call it waterfall. Philosophers call it reductionism. Or you can assume that the project is like a network of interrelated parts that influence each other and therefore change and evolve along the way. It is a quintessence of the agile and the iterative design approach. In philosophical terms it is called: holism.
Reductionism
Reductionism is an approach where you break the system down to its pieces to reason about it from the properties of these pieces. It tries to analyze and describe the complex phenomena in terms of parts that exist on a simpler or more fundamental level. It pays attention to the parts of the whole and assumes that all higher level phenomena (e.g., attitude of customers towards technology as such) can be understood based on a combination of the lower level features (e.g., an attitude towards their mobile phone).
Then, it strives to define a unified description of the world by reducing it to the elementary components, from which everything can be explained as a combination of the parts. Basically, you reduce a system to its elements and then sort of design its behavior from these elements. In other words, imagine an app. You put together all its features: buttons, links, texts, pics, etc. and by looking at them you deduce how people will interact with it. It assumes there is one correct answer and that static, bottom-up, objective structure can be defined.
It all stems from the approach put froward by René Descartes, a XVII century philosopher and scientist who promoted that meaning exists independently of the observer’s consciousness. He argues that people have a direct contact with the real and objective reality through our perception and that our job is to understand the world through empirical inquiry. He assumed that we are able to build one-to-one correspondence of our perceptual and conceptual view of this objective world that is out there. Thus, in reductionism you have an emphasis on the fact that complex phenomena should be explained by statements about phenomena of a simpler nature.
Reductionism and design
Since reductionism is, in its nature, mono-dimantional, the most basic example of it in the design world are requirements documentation. In any such documentation there is an underlying assumption that once the basic elements of a system are described, the system will eventually work as envisioned. In other words, the waterfall approach is firmly embedded in the reductionist approach.
Let’s grab another example. Have you ever encountered marketing segmentation? Typically, it is an attempt to categorize people with respect to their attitude towards a given brand or a solution. In other words, a company might try to derive high level properties (like the kind of a job a person does) from the elementary components (such as an attitude towards a certain brand of a mobile phone). I remember one such segmentation from the times when Nokia phones were still en vogue. There was one marketing segment called: the Nokians that aggregated all Nokia users with an assumption that their preference for Nokia mobile phone was a good explanation of their other qualities and preferences. Once we dug deeper into that segment it has turned out that there is no such a group as the Nokians. This category included such a broad group of people that there was practically impossible to find any other commonalities between then apart from their preference for Nokia.
It may come as a surprise but also personas are a form of reductionism. They assume that a static depiction of user properties (family status, goals, activities) will enable you to design for predicable outcomes in terms of the impact on a given solution on people’s lives.
Yet another example of reductionism are KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). KPIs are meant to evaluate the success either of an entire organization or a given project. They are periodically repeated, almost never changed and the success is assessed in terms of making some sort of progress. Companies often define only a few KPIs to reduce the complexity of the measurement (assuming that the parts of the system will explain the complex behavior of the entire company) and maintain KPI variables as constant over time to be able to assess progress (assuming that the objective world is not changing that quickly).
Reductionism has one immense advantage: it allows us to capture the perceived complexity of the surrounding world in a form of elements and aspects that are easier to work with. It is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time, as we are quickly running the risk of oversimplifying the situation, leading us to cognitive miser: the tendency to solve problems in simpler and less effortfull rather than in more sophisticated and more effortfull ways.
Holism
An approach typically seen as the opposite to reductionism is called: holism. It is an idea that any system (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic) and its properties should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of parts. Holism tries to understand the elements in the context of the whole system and its environment. It attempts to see each entity as a part of a larger whole (like a deer being a part of the forest or a video being a part of the educational program).
The major difference with respect to reductionism is that in holism the whole system has the priority over its parts. Holism also assumes that the properties of the system cannot be explained by the properties of its parts. So, for example, the success of AirBnB can’t be explained by the visuals on their website. The qualities of the system are derived by analyzing the references between the elements and the system. It assumes that everything is a network rather than a set .So, in the AirBnB example they would constitute links between visuals, communication, prices of accommodation and all the other elements that build the service.
Holism is a top down view: from the bigger picture to its elements, very much process-oriented and assuming a subjective view on the world. It puts emphasis on multidimentionality of complex phenomena and sees that there can be different levels of explanation for something going on. Thus in its very nature holism is emergent, meaning that as designers we look for different phenomena and different patterns emerging as we put things together.
Furthermore, holistic approach assumes that a researcher or a designer is not a passive observer of an external world. It posits that people are in the reciprocal, participatory relationship with the universe and that their contributions to how they perceive that universe are valuable. That there can be more than just one view and more than one possible valid explanation to what is going on around us. Even further it assumes that there is not such a thing as an objective truth. Consider this: even if you copy the AirBnB service to the last pixel, it doesn’t guarantee that you will have an equal success, does it? Therefore, the crucial thing is to recognize our own subjectivity by analyzing it before beginning the observation or the analysis. In other words: it is worthwhile to define an appropriate paradigm or a valid evaluation method before running a study or creating a design.
Holism and design
Casuality in holism flows in both directions in continuous dynamic between micro and macro levels and therefore it is crucial to understand the emerging phenomena by gaining multiple perspectives and then synthesizing them into a more complete picture. Agile or iterative design methodologies (such as Design Thinking) are great examples here. They assume that system properties will emerge as more design elements are put together and therefore try not to put forward all assumptions beforehand.
Let’s start imagining holism with this example. You go to the doctor feeling somewhat depressed. The reductionist approach would be to assess your mental and physiological symptoms: lack of sleep, lower count of iron in your blood, and to prescribe you an appropriate medication. A holistic approach would require from the doctor to get to understand your cognitive state, your work and family situation, the recent events that took place in your life and only after that decide on the treatment.
Another example can be group behavior and company culture. The group behavior naturally impacts the individual behaviour, right? But as a consequence, one person can also have a strong impact on that behavior and therefore influence the culture.
It goes even more multidimentional. Think of conformity in focus groups — a person who has the influence over the opinions of the group doesn’t have to be generally an influential one. But within the context of a given group and a given topic, the stakes are so high that this person suddenly fights for her opinion to be a winning one.
A final yet really great example comes from design research in a form of generative techniques such as Design or Cultural Probes. These methods aim to grasp the perception of the context to a given design challenge from multiple perspectives with attention to emotions and subjectivity in perceiving the world.
There is a similar challenge with respect to measuring the design efforts. Measurements of satisfaction that take into account complexity of this phenomenon (by understanding that for example, the willingness to recommend may not be enough to state how happy customers are with your service), define fluid ways to capture it and focus on measuring the delta between subsequent measurements rather than the big numbers, are good examples of holistic approach.
Phenomenology
There is one instantiation of the holistic approach that is particularly interesting for design. It is called phenomenology. Phenomenology is a study of lived experience, an experience of being in and of the world. It is a break from the Cartesian system expressed by reductionism, which pitched a divide between the objective and perceived, subjective reality. The father of phenomenology, Edmund Husselr argued that emotions are a crucial part of how we perceive the world and that the investigation of the world can’t be done just in objective, rational terms.
The most influential phenomenological philosopher from the perspective of the design field is certainly Martin Heidegger, who was, actually, pretty critical to the Hussler’s notion of seeing an object of a study as a graspable entity that, providing we are aware of our biases, could be objectively studied. Heidegger formulated a notion of dasein: — the situated meaning of a human in the world. It assumed that our consciousness is a product of the historical context from which it arises, so it is impossible to approach an object of a study in presumprionless way. He also believed that not only the objects of the study can’t be separated from their context, but they should not be. That reality and consciousness are co-creators, where our understanding arises from the relationship of these two acting upon each other.
Phenomenology and design
Phenomenology seeks to understand the world as it is interpreted by and through human consciousness. So, it is crucial to take into account whether the user evaluating your system is happy about your products or upset by your offering as it will certainly affect her judgement. It is also equally important to understand what intentionality is being applied to the object of the study. So, if your system is assessed by a person who experiences learned powerlessness, it will affect the way the system is being perceived. Therefore it is crucial to understand those biases and “quarantine” them so they don’t influence the inquiry.
Phenomenology assumes that the world is inherently meaningful to us. We see it through the lens of what we can do with it to find and to express meaning. This meaning emerges in action. Therefore information for action is a crucial issue for any kind of design activity. My mentor and professor Kees Overbeeke once wrote:
“Every scientist has a body of knowledge and a body of beliefs. Knowledge results from painstakingly doing experiments, from theory, abstraction and system. Knowledge is about how things are, about causality. Beliefs result from philosophy, intuition, awareness, experience, from our being-in-the- world, in a given culture, in a given timeframe. Beliefs are about how we feel things might be, about serendipity. I find it important to spell out these beliefs, because beliefs guide what we do, where we go and look, and what strikes our eyes.”
Phenomenology embeds design in the world as it is. It gives the primacy to our embodiment and interaction. It also sees reflection as the source of design knowledge. And values intuition and the common sense as guiding mechanisms for design efforts. It promotes design research and practice as powerful generators of knowledge. Knowledge that has transformational power. Like physics. Or mathematics. But from a perspective of approaching the world as a whole. With its richness and complexity. Not as a reduced set of axioms. Reductionist approach a truly great approach in so many disciplines. But not necessarily in design. Design needs subjectivity that is grounded. It needs intuition that is fed. It requires reflection that is rooted in action. Then it has a true power to change the world.
_________________________________________________________________
Aga Szóstek, PhD is an experience designer with over 19 years of practice in both academic and business world. She is an author of “The Umami Strategy: stand out by mixing business with experience design”, a creator of tools supporting designers in the ideation process: Seed Cards and the co-host in the Catching The Next Wave podcast.
