from the book cover
We’re at the start of the 2010 CHI challenge, another “wicked problem,” and it reminds 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]
As we build systems, we need to be aware of short-term, long-term, and unexpected consequences. Smart designers understand the motivations and needs of their target population. Who is your target population? What do you know about them? If you build a tool for them (to help them walk more or to enjoy their walks or…), what are the side effects? Might there be unintended consequences? Are you able to anticipate some of these and design for them?
How is your project avoiding the logic of failure? It may be impossible for us to avoid some of these unintended consequences, but we might mitigate against some of them through careful design.
