On Macroscopes and the Complex Interconnectedness of Things

We need to design macroscopes, as well as microscopes, to help us understand where things come from and why… (p.6)

Underlying many of Thackara’s proposals is the belief that contemporary design and industry does a poor job of perceiving, understanding, and transforming large, complex, interconnected systems. The mindset borne out of the industrial revolution leads us to optimize individual pieces at the expense of the whole.

Our dilemma is that small design actions can have big effects—often unexpectedly—and designers have only recently been told, with the rest of us, how incredibly sensitive we need to be to the possible consequences of any design steps we take. (p.7)

The problems of remaining ignorant of design consequences impact the sustainability of the environment, our relationship with technology, and our connections with each other. Much of the book is made up of suggestions and examples of ways that we can take a more holistic approach.

With this new approach, two broad shifts for design practice stand out. First, the scope of what we design needs to adapt to a systems perspective, so we need to develop the appropriate tools (“macroscopes” as Thackara calls them) to see and act upon systems. 

A relationship, or flow, or accumulation, or change, is by its nature invisible. An important new task of design is to make these behavior and changes within systems intelligible. We need new ways to understand the morphology of systems—their dynamics, their “intelligence”: how they work, what stimulates them, how and why they change. (p.22)

Second, because systems are made up of all sorts of people and entities outside of any top-down control, the role of designer shifts from author to facilitator.

From thinking of ourselves as the authors of a finished work, we had better evolve toward thinking of ourselves as facilitator whose job is to help people act more intelligently, in a more design-minded way, in the systems we all live in… This shift in emphasis from what things look like to how they behave—from designing on the world to designing in the world—is a big one for design. (p.214)

I believe in the philosophy Thackara describes here, but admit that it can be difficult to apply in daily design practice, especially if one is embedded in organizational structures already tailored to an industrial approach.

But I am hopeful because I also see how smaller shifts, like the popularization of design research and examples of crossovers between design and other fields, could start to pull together into a more drastic movement in professional design toward thoughtful systems design.