3min chapter

The Informed Life cover image

Sheryl Cababa on Systems Thinking for Social Change

The Informed Life

CHAPTER

The Importance of Systems Thinking in Design Practices

As I started integrating systems thinking into my practice, I didn't stop engaging with kind of design thinking methodology. So there has to be a way in order to combine these things so that they work together. This might be worth unpacking the differences between three concepts. The first chapter of the book is called the shortcomings of user centered design.

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Speaker 1
So I feel like as I started integrating systems thinking into my practice, I didn't stop engaging with kind of design thinking methodology because that is, you know, I'm a designer by nature. So this is that was kind of my background and how I approach the work. But as I read about systems thinking and started integrating, for example, some of the systems mapping processes into my practice, I felt like, oh, there's some really good synergy here between design thinking and systems thinking that I've never, I feel like I've never seen written about. And you know, now I know there are some, there are many other practitioners in this space who are kind of focused on that intersection. And I kind of learned about that through the process of writing this book. But I think what I really wanted to focus on was this idea of combining the two things in a meaningful way and also attempting to make systems thinking accessible for design practitioners. So they're not going to like hang up their designer job, right? As soon as they start becoming a systems thinker and suddenly start, you know, doing only formalized systems thinking practices. So there has to be a way in order to combine these things so that they work together and that they actually, I guess, intersect in a way that's meaningful for the design practice and what designers kind of tend to deliver on the things that they're focused on and the processes that they use. This might be worth unpacking the differences between three concepts. One is systems thinking, obviously, and I want to get into what that is, but particularly the distinction between design thinking and user centered design. The first chapter of the book is called the shortcomings of user centered design, which suggests that what you're talking about here, this integration, this fusion between systems thinking and design thinking might be a response to what you see as the shortcomings of user centered design. I mean, that's how I approached it. And I was wondering if you could draw distinctions between those and then tell us about these shortcomings of user centered design. Yeah.

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