Where Do Designers Land?
Posted on December 17, 2016My Unknowns in TransD
As I approach the last hours of the last days of my first semester in Transdisciplinary design, I find myself mentally swaying; my vision is blurry, my mind dizzy, my ability to think and see clearly fuzzed away by the ocean of ideas flooding my brain (and also by sleep deprivation, the severity of which I have not experienced since those nostalgic undergrad thesis days).
When I began this program, I expected it to be a challenge for a number of reasons:
- I had no prior background or training in any design discipline
- I was (and am still, by the way) largely technologically challenged
- The program describes itself specifically as one made to challenge its students; challenge their assumptions, their methods, their minds
- The collaborative nature of most classes brings with it the intensity of interpersonal dynamics—even groups that love each other sometimes hate each other!
- Having to navigate the extroverted nature of group work as an introvert
- Unpredictability: of content, of hours, of commitment, of experience, of future
It seems like a long list, but in many ways, it is because of these challenges that I wanted to join the program. These were my learning points, my self-identified areas of growth. They were my known knowns, to use TransD speak.
In August I started school, ready to discover the Unknown Knowns, and to work on the Known Unknowns to maybe figure out how to deal with the Unknown Unknowns.
I’m just on the brink of beginning to uncover some of those (un)knowns, but one question has risen above the rest, large and floating, eclipsing my other explorations: how is transdisciplinary design best applied in this world?
The more I delved into the question, the more it unfolded into other inquiries:
What is transdisciplinary design? How is it defined, who defines it and what purpose does it serve? What is its value as presented by Parsons, and what is its value as understood by each student? Where is it setting us up to go, and where do we want to go with it?
These questions are universal—just replace TransD with any field of study and they still apply. But I’m thinking of them beyond terms of employment or elevator pitch explanation: the challenge for me is to understand the premise of TransD work within a justice context. How is it uniquely equipped to tackle the incredibly complex, layered, systemically tangled messes in our world today; the “wicked problems” as designer Horst Rittel and urban planner Melvin Webber call them?[1] How large is its scope and how detailed?
I’m not expecting to arrive at an “answer,” but I thought it would be helpful to reflect back on some initial texts used to introduce this course. Now that I have spent a few months practicing design-led research, working with systems maps, prototyping and iterating, researching and ideating, might I have some better grasp of how this kind of design works, and if it “works”?
Theory of Change
Although TransD doesn’t necessarily have a specific theory of change, I think its general approach is to take a systems-level look at problems in order to understand different leverage points and identify the most impactful, efficient places for intervention. The method is somehow quite specific yet incredibly general.[2]
But beyond the systems thinking, transdisciplinary design doesn’t make any overarching claims about the scale of the systems we look at and the kinds of leverage points we may find. It can’t make general claims, really, as those scales and points completely depend on each situation.[3]
And that space—that lack of claim—is where my own social change belief systems seeped right in. Personally, I believe deeply in the power of personal and interpersonal incremental change as a means to facilitating systemic change. In fact, I believe in it so much that I’ve always had a hard time teaching—both because I think it’s one of the most beautiful and impactful professions, and because I feel such high stakes for students; their potential, their vulnerabilities. I’m hyper aware that the classroom I set up is, in itself, a model for the current and potential future world.
As a transdisciplinary designer, and as an educator, how do I then think about the best way to format my classroom? Where are the leverage points? Are they in the systemic intervention work of my students, or is it in the way I structure the class itself—is that the intervention most needed?
In his New Yorker article “Group Think,” Jonah Lehrer describes a 2003 study conducted by psychologist Charlan Nemeth in which she tested varying formats for fostering group creativity. She tested out “no-criticism” rules versus “debate conditions” in a task where students had to come up with solutions to traffic congestion. Nemeth reports:
While the instruction ‘Do not criticize’ is often cited as the important instruction in brainstorming, this appears to be a counterproductive strategy. Our findings show that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition . . . There’s this Pollyannaish notion that the most important thing to do when working together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt anyone’s feelings. Well, that’s just wrong. Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs.[4]
Hmmm—perhaps this is the reasoning behind the debate structure of our TransD Seminar class? And perhaps this is also why the designer-to-designer critique method I’ve observed in academic spaces sometimes seems quite critical, instigating, even provocative simply for the sake of being provocative.
It took me a long time after graduating from college to understand the ways I had lost confidence over four years, the ways the argumentative and aggressive debate styles of my (often) male peers had done much more to silence me than to challenge and push my thinking. It took me years to begin to understand that just because some people in my classroom were comfortable interrupting one another, shutting one another down with theoretical terminology and fancy manipulations of logical reasoning, that didn’t mean the only way to engage in rigorous, critical inquiry was through assertive, ego-enforcing debate. There are other ways to challenge ideas. To be respectful and to listen deeply and, frankly, to shut up sometimes doesn’t mean we have to be Pollyannaish and unimaginative.
I’m not questioning Nemeth’s findings that debate and criticism stimulated a greater breadth of original ideas in her students. But I wonder about what other impact the varying methods of group work had? Maybe students generated more ideas, but did they feel more empowered to act on those ideas? Or did they feel like shutting down and never speaking again? Maybe the brainstorming group sacrificed originality for cohesiveness, but is it possible that their proclivity to maintain pleasantness would actually prove crucial if they were to move forward in long-term group work?
Alternatively, I wonder what the group dynamic was of the students she tested with. Did they know each other? Had they already formed relationships, developed a dynamic? Debate amongst friends and peers that already trust one another—that have established relationships of support and respect—might have a very different output than debate amongst strangers who have no reason to trust one another. When we engage in discourse, isn’t it at least a bit helpful to consider our audiences before jumping into a default or blanket communication style?
The Space for TransD
Okay taking a step back: what does group work and group-think have to do with transdisciplinary design’s theory of change?
It’s difficult to articulate, but what I’m trying to get at is a dissonance between the theories that design thinking offers and what those theories look like on the ground. For instance, there are many leverage points and connections I might see in a systems map about homelessness in NYC. And maybe I decide to facilitate a series of participatory workshops where designers and homeless individuals get together to co-create interventions. This would be both a form of research, and, in a way, its own intervention.
Sounds like it might work . . . but when I’m finally in the room with all these people I’ve “invited” to work on change, where am I on that original systems map, what scale(s) am I operating on? Am I intervening on a personal level that will ripple out and create systemic change? Or on a systems level that will ripple down and create personal change?
Also, in that co-creative session, do I insist on debate, critique, rigor and the terminology and language we all use in the classroom? Do I want to be a transdisciplinary designer in that moment? Or do I want to be me, Nandita, listening and learning from people in the room? Do I want to be thinking in systems, or not thinking at all: instead making eye contact, being present, releasing my agenda for “change” and showing up in the moment?
It has been a rather tumultuous journey to arrive at a relatively basic (and seemingly obvious) conclusion: there are spaces where design is the perfect tool for facilitating understanding, creation and intervention. And there are spaces where it may not serve the cause.
The same goes for “Pollyannaish” communication. There are moments where the intractable problem may best be served by forgoing hearty debate in favor of empathic listening. And there are moments where we need to release our egos and fragile feelings and get into the boxing pit to spar with our ideas.
Jamer’s Curveball: The Meso-scale
As I mention in my third footnote, I wrote this post before hearing Jamer’s presentation on the meso-scale. In some ways, it answers and makes defunct much of what I’ve just written.
Instead of saying that design cannot claim what scale it operates on because each case is unique, the notion is that actually—we need to consider all scales in the design process. Even if an intervention ultimately takes place on one specific scale—perhaps on the scale of urban planning, zoomed in on a city scale, as opposed to a scale of systems thinking, zoomed out looking at nations—the designer should consider how that intervention impacts what’s happening on smaller and larger scales.
The idea is profound for my own understanding, though anti-climactic for this post, because it answers what I thought was my very provocative question.
I’ve been asking: but how, how, how can design interventions work only on one level! How can they not take into account the micro of personal and interpersonal interactions while implementing large-scale change, and how could I not take into account the overwhelming large-scale systems operations while implementing my small-scale action?
I was originally going to propose some way of approaching design that considers the communication styles, the cultural environments, the needs and the vulnerabilities of ones colleagues/co-designers. That perhaps big systems work is best done in big professional offices where people are quite comfortable debating and being critical of one another’s ideas. And that design for social interactions might focus more on implementing counseling and teaching techniques that holistically engage people.
But, in this moment, I’m scrapping that. Because I can’t stop thinking of the zoom-out, zoom-in photos Jamer used to portray how an issue is reframed at each scale, how the challenges of the same problem change depending on the scale. And my answer to myself has now changed to: it’s not a matter of deeming what kind of design/design methods are right for what context and which people, but it’s a matter of being flexible and mobile across the spectrum of scales. It’s about being able to zoom in 200% and see that my co-designer might need a hug and someone to see them—see how they might be in a situation where they’re completely squished by an oppressive system—and then to zoom out and see that the intervention we’re co-designing needs to use strategic, political language in order to have a shot at seriously changing the minds of state politicians. And then to zoom out even more to see the role of those state politicians when it comes to international movements, and then to zoom all the way back in to myself and remember to keep living, breathing and embodying the values that have brought me into this work in the first place.
Speaking of the mobility we need for moving up and down scales, perhaps I should also mention the spiral-y motion of the design thinking process itself? For in conjunction with the zoom in-zoom out that I now clearly see I need to practice, there is getting used to the phenomena of making (writing, creating, researching) a LOT only to get back to where I started, but just a tiny bit wiser.
And so I arrive where I began: mentally swaying; my vision blurry, my mind dizzy, my ability to think and see clearly fuzzed away by the ocean of ideas flooding my brain.
A disorienting but good place to be—the place where learning continually beings.
-Nandita Batheja
[1] Rittel, H. & Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 155-169.
[2] C Burns, H Cottam, C Vanstone, J Winhall, “Transformation Design.’ RED. Design Council.
[3] Ah, I am challenged once more! After writing this post, I attended a class in which our teacher, Jamer Hunt, gave a presentation on the scales TransD might operate on, proposing that we all need to think about scale, from micro to super macro, when thinking about design. He suggests that the role of design is to create on the “mesoscale”, landing somewhere between bottom-up strategies and top-down ones, making platforms that allow for bottom-up individualization but with top-down speed of implementation. I’ll need a few more weeks to integrate this perspective into the critique I’ve written here, though I will take an initial stab later in this post.
[4] Lehrer, J. “Groupthink.” New Yorker. 30 Jan. 2012.