A framework for a systems design approach to complex societal problems

Abstract

Societal problems concern the complexity of technical, organisational, social, and political issues. The enormous negative impacts of these problems and the inability of problem solvers to deal with high levels of complexity cannot be overcome without a paradigm shift in how we understand and engage with such issues. Two domains have been helpful in bringing about such a shift: Systems Thinking and Design. Although these domains express mutual interest in social–technical systems and complex problem solving, in the literature there are few attempts of bringing the compatibility between them to the attention of designers. This paper aims to contribute to this endeavour by uncovering the role of integrating systems thinking for design, and by providing an overview of the emerging field of systems-oriented design approaches. An extensive literature review outlines significant aspects underlying systems thinking to support its use and further development in design. This paper provides a conceptual framework structured in five clusters: mindset, methodology set, knowledge set, skill set and tool set. The framework is meant to assist designers in integrating systems thinking into design and thereby enable them to better handle complex societal problems.

Bringing Systemic Design in the Educational Practice: The Case of Gender Equality in an Academic Context

“…From a broad perspective education should lead to new knowledge, skills and attitudes. Specifically for the context of design education we can add the need to introduce a specific mindset, a methodology, and tools (Costa, Diehl and Snelders, 2019). The educational programme for product development comprises clear development lines for developing generic design skills and attitudes.…”

Towards Systems-Oriented Energy Solutions: A Multilevel Analysis of a Low-Income Energy Efficiency Program in Brazil

“…To support problem solvers to do so, this study explored a multilevel model that builds on innovation theories, such as technological transition [56] and system innovation, and the transition to sustainability [10,11]. Additionally, it considered design studies such as those exploring the design for system innovations and transitions [43,57,58] and the integration of product-service systems to system innovation and transition theories [41,[59][60][61][62][63].…”

Examining Nutrition and Food Waste Trade-offs Using an Obesity Prevention Context

“…Systems thinking aims to understand the complex whole instead of a reductionist approach of chunking problems into smaller parts. 19,20 This big picture view acknowledges the complexity of the overall system in an effort to avoid exacerbating future problems within the same system. 19,20 However, practice and policy initiatives to combat obesity and food waste tend to focus on each issue in isolation.…”

“…19,20 This big picture view acknowledges the complexity of the overall system in an effort to avoid exacerbating future problems within the same system. 19,20 However, practice and policy initiatives to combat obesity and food waste tend to focus on each issue in isolation. For example, strengthened nutrition standards mandated under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA), such as increasing vegetable variety, offering only lowfat and nonfat milk, and establishing meal calorie maximums, 21 have been weakened because of concerns about the amount of food waste incurred in the National School Lunch Program.…”