logic of failure
Posted by Marty Siegel on November 18, 2007
We’re in the middle of designing solutions for a complex, real world problem, and it reminded me of a book I read some years ago: The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations, by Dietrich Dörner. The author tells a story of a city council and its mayor trying to fix the volume of traffic, noise, and air pollution in their downtown area. To solve the problem they introduced speed bumps and the speed limit was reduced to 20 miles per hour. But the results were unexpected: 1) the speed bumps forced people to drive in a lower gear, thus increasing the noise and exhaust fumes; 2) but because of the reduced speed, people spent more time shopping, and this actually increased the number of cars in the downtown area; 3) eventually fewer and fewer went downtown because of these reasons; 4) people started shopping in a near-by mall; 5) downtown stores, once thriving, were facing bankruptcy, and 6) tax revenues were significantly down. “The fate of this environment-conscious town demonstrates how human planning and decision-making processes can go awry if we do not pay enough attention to possible side effects and long-term repercussions, if we apply corrective measures too aggressively or too timidly, of if we ignore premises we should have considered.” [p.2]
It seems we’re wired for this kind of ad hoc thinking. Hunting, building a fire, or chasing away a wild animal does not have much significance beyond the act; “…our prehistoric ancestors did not have to think beyond the situation itself. The need to see a problem embedded in the context of other problems rarely arose. For us, however, this is the rule, not the exception. Do our habits of thought measure up to the demands of thinking in systems? What errors are we prone to when we have to take side effects and long-term repercussions into account?” [p. 6]
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The technique of asking question after question about your design may prevent this kind of failure. Rich Gold’s analysis of smart houses prevents this kind of thinking and leads to solid design arguments. I hope some teams are using this technique and thus avoiding failure.
November 19, 2007 at 6:11 pm
I really feel the problem with most design is that it is, as you say, “ad hoc.” But I’m not sure everyone knows what ad hoc means, and so here is the definition that wikipedia is running (till someone changes it).
” Ad hoc is a Latin phrase which means “for this purpose”. It generally signifies a solution that has been custom designed for a specific problem, is non-generalizable, and cannot be adapted to other purposes.” (wikipedia Nov 19 2007, “ad hoc”
”
They are solutions that tend to ‘focus on the symptoms and not the disease.’
For example, say you went to the doctor with a cough, a headache, and tiredness. Say too, that this doctor gives you cough medicine, an aspirin, and tells you to get some sleep.
Now, if you just happen to have a cough, a headache, and tiredness all at the same time, this doctor has addressed all your symptoms and diseases.
But if you have pneumonia, the doctor is merely addressing your symptoms, and - what’s worse - is letting the real problem go unaddressed.
November 20, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Prof. Siegel, I am glad you post on this very important topic of repercussions of a purposeful design which most amateur designers like us seldom take into consideration!
The author makes for an interesting real world example involving the city council blunders, that makes us realize that a design that would backlash in its attempt to be purposeful needn’t necessarily count for a good design.
As far as our new design concept ‘Grocery Mate’ for the CHI project is concerned, although we are ‘gung ho’ about our new design concept, I secretly worry whether it will have adverse side effects in the long run. If our design aims at generating donations of tangible resources for the homeless, and if it is fairly successful/impactful, will it make the homeless complacent about their state of homelessness since now resources will be readily available for them?
…in that case, will our successful design be a good design?
November 21, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Of course it’s difficult to know what the implications of any design might be, Rajasee. But that is why Rich Gold’s technique is so good. By asking many questions — exploring this, exploring that — you will begin to see the potential problems with your design.
Design gets even more complicated if we begin to think about a given design implemented over a period of time. What might work well at t1 may not be so great at t5.
November 23, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Great post Marty.
November 25, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I think this also ties into the Urgency Quiz exercise we did in class. It seems easier to fall into “ad hoc” reasoning if you’re more prone to be an urgency addict. “I need to get this done and I need to get it done now. It might have side effects, but I can justify them by saying that I didn’t have the time to think about them.” In a sense (not a very good sense, but a sense nonetheless), it’s easier to have a packed schedule all the time because it comes with a built in excuse (again, not a very good excuse, but an excuse).
And speaking as a procrastinator, I think it also feed to that notion. “This might not be the most brilliant solution, but when I think about the fact that I did it in 8 hours, it’s not so bad.”
This is all to say, I need to lower my urgency factor. =)
November 27, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Hey Eugene, its nice of you to be brutally honest about your urgency addiction.
however, I believe, as we will be making our foray into the professional world soon, it is essential that we learn how to think from angles thoroughly and coming up with competent design solutions in limited amount of time(time constraints are a dominant factor at most cutting edge companies). Being a procrastinator is still okay (though not totally permissible)as a student, but in a professional setting, I wonder if one can afford to give lame excuses and get away with it. It will definitely tamper your professional image.
Also, as an emergent designer, I have actually begun to feel apologetic, if I happen to fail at convincingly performing my tasks in my best possible manner. In some way, developing a sense of ‘designer conscience’ over time in this learning process, would not only make us more responsible and keen as a designer but would most definitely take us a long way in the field of design!
November 28, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Failures are the pillars to success.. Only when one has tasted failure, does success taste sweeter!
Thanks for this post Marty!
December 2, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Perhaps there is something to be said for ad hoc solutions in that they do solve the problem at hand. Unless a designer chooses to consciously ignore problems that he/she anticipates, I wouldn’t criticize ad hoc design merely for being ad hoc. Not all problems can be anticipated and perhaps time and effort spent investigating hypothetical scenarios would be better invested elsewhere especially if said scenarios are remote. This is an argument in favor of a paradigm which serves as a checklist but paradigms are not perfect either. We turn to the paradigm as a means of navigating the balance between ‘ad hoc ness’ and ‘anticipatory-ness’ of design. But perhaps, it is a little misguided to expect design to fall into either extreme.