Designing Positive Sum Systems: Introductory Musings
The positive-sum game is a theoretical idea, arising out of game theory but populating far-reaching areas of academia including economics, social science, mathematics, and psychology. At its core, a positive-sum game is one in which value is created through collaboration or negotiation between entities. Positive-sum games are generally cast as the foil to zero-sum games, in which value is fixed and collaboration or negotiation generally leads to winners and losers. Many academics argue that positive-sum systems (systems demonstrating the characteristics of a positive-sum game) are central to the emergence of human civilization and the successful evolution of the “social animal.” Such arguments can be found in books such as Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature and Robert Wright’s Nonzero.
I am an interaction designer by trade, so why am I writing about game theory? I not only posit that designing to deliberately create positive-sum systems is a vital part of the designer’s practice, but also suggest that the goal of design, especially interaction design, is to create fractal positive-sum situations. This is a bold suggestion, and I am aware I may be wrong about this: I am at the beginning of my study of this field and my initial instincts may ultimately be proven wrong. This is a labor of love for design theory and practice, not a crusade bent on enforcing my ideas about design. That said, if design really is deeply connected to positive-sum systems, understanding and emphasizing that connection will almost certainly lead to better design work.
Why do I believe that design and positive-sum games are so intricately intertwined? At a basic level, design seeks to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Graphic designers create compositions out of visual elements that work to build upon each other. An artifact or machine interacts with a human being through use, creating value where there was none by virtue of the interaction. This creation of value through collaboration is the proverbial smoking gun of a positive-sum situation.
I should note that I am not saying all design is successful at creating positive-sum situations: if this were my claim then all design would be positive-sum design and the positive-sum modifier would lose all of its meaning (and could be dropped for brevity’s sake). Rather, I think all design seeks to create positive-sum situations, but designs are not always successful in achieving this end. There are also gradients of success possible: the more value created by virtue of collaboration, the more positive the sum.
Design already does its job well though, right? Why spend all this time on a game-theoretical abstraction when we can use existing design methods to design well? I have two initial answers to this question which I will develop further in the future:
1. If truisms exist in design practice, a central one is that we never know what a re-framing might do to deepen the understanding of a design problem. The process of design is itself a design problem. Re-framing design from the perspective of positive-sum systems may, therefore, yield new or improved methods to add to the designer’s toolkit.
2. I need to tread carefully here: there are disciplines of design that function very well in certain contexts; however, I am not sure we can make sweeping statements about design’s ability to create positive change in the world. The literary work of Papanek, Monteiro, Shariat, and Savard Saucier come to mind immediately. So, it is not clear that current design methods are doing their job well enough. Further, design has a storied history of failures (although there are some successes) in the creation of enduring positive change in social and human systems. This suggests design methods are failing in this arena for one reason or another. With its roots in game theory and theories of collaboration, Positive sum design may be especially well equipped to add to the approach of these sorts of problems.
This is the first of a series of medium posts on positive-sum design. I will be adding one post every other week. If anyone is reading this and I have piqued your interest, I suggest checking out Professor Ian Gonsher’s piece An Introduction to Positive Sum Design. As far as I can tell, he is the only other person writing explicitly about the connection between positive-sum games and design.
