THEORIES OF CHANGE: Multiple Systems Approaches
Transition Design Seminar: February 22, 2016
Class notes for the graduate seminar on Transition Design taught at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design by terry irwin, cameron tonkinwise, and Gideon Kossoff. Written and visualized by Shruti Aditya Chowdhury and Allison Huang.
For this third class in our Theories of Change module, we read about various methods of framing complex systems to understand how and where transformations can occur within them. These methods included socio-technical regime theory (and sustainable transition management), the Cynefin framework, and post-normal science.
Cameron began class by asking us to think about something interesting or unexpected we brought to school with us. Through a series of questions, we expanded our understanding of this object from how long we’ve had it/how long it is expected to last to the skills, meaning, and infrastructures its existence draws upon — and also began to realize how infrequently we think about “things” in their larger contexts. Using some of the examples brought up in class (Kakee’s tube of ointment and Terry’s medallion), we moved into a discussion around the objects’ origin, evolution, and surrounding socio-technical regimes.
From there, Cameron discussed examples of socio-technical innovations and their adoption. He used the socio-technical regime theory and different historicities to frame each narrative. The socio-technical regime theory helps explain movements of innovations through different levels of social structures (landscape, regime, niche), while the historicities (structure, conjecture, and events) focus on innovations over different spans of time.
One example we delved into was the public adoption of private automobiles from previous modes of transportation. Changes at different levels of the landscape/regime/niche framework created the infrastructure, details, and mid-level changes needed to lead the transportation system transition. Getting to see how a historical transition could be mapped onto the socio-technical regime theory gave us a jumping-off point to talking about how we could use the theory to mindfully design for socio-technical transitions.
Designers should be able to see both the infrastructure and the details. What infrastructures are we perpetuating?
We talked about technological innovations that currently reside in niches and how designed infrastructures might support their adoption outside the niche. (A few examples included virtual reality and autonomous vehicles.) As students in an interaction design program, we are heavily involved and invested in technological innovations. However, given the tools the transition design framework includes, we are being equipped to consider the risks of innovating for innovation’s sake. Tools like the socio-technical regime theory could help us keep the big picture in mind, asking questions about the infrastructures and value systems such innovations perpetuate.
Who is responsible for thinking about and communicating the risks, and how can we say no to socio-technical innovations we don’t support?
Questioning innovations and being aware of the risks often isn’t enough to stop socio-technical innovations whose risks may outweigh the benefits. This is where post-normal science comes in: it gives people voices to weigh in. It allows laypeople to be more involved in the conversations surrounding socio-technical innovations and their implications.
After the lecture, we moved into a discussion about a designer’s responsibility and ethics, especially with the amount of agency we have today. In the design process, we impose our values — conscious or not — on whatever it is we design. Some standout thoughts and questions from that discussion included:
How can we break socio-technical change out our niches of generations, class, etc.? What about the temporalities we typically focus on?
Interaction designs are the “stirrups”: a necessary but not a standalone cause of change.
There is no linearity in the complexity of these histories.
How can transition design inform human-centered design to allow for change in people themselves?
Although we didn’t have enough time to run a full workshop as intended, an interesting application of the socio-technical regime theory and different levels of historicities could be to the wicked problem maps we created earlier in this semester. Using these frames to guide discussion, an exploration of the previously proposed leverage points (as well as additional propositions for leverage points) could result in a projection of their potential transition paths. This could also help us as interaction designers to think beyond leverage points — about what the tipping points from niche to regime to landscape might be.
