Defining and Representing “Real-World Problems”

The first phase of the design process aims at defining the problem and representing it. Nevertheless, in the real world, problems are highly complex and dynamic, and cut across different disciplines. This makes representing these problems in a manageable way a challenging issue for designers. Due to their complexity, Jonas states that “Since JONES or RITTEL we can know that well-defined problems are rare exceptions.” he explains that “Real design problems are ill-defined or "wicked", because they are transitory, context-sensitive, dependent on stakeholders’ views, etc.” he proposes “to operationalize the systemic approach, to make it manageable in everyday design practice, and, at the same time, to denote its inherent limitations” (Jonas 3-5 Sep. 2003, p. 3).

102 The concept of ‘wicked problems’, according to the Design Dictionary, was first mooted in 1973 by Horse Rittel and Melvin Webber with reference to complex problems that require a collaborative team from different backgrounds cooperating with the relevant public in order to achieve incremental improvements to a specific situation (Marshall 2008, p. 447). According to Rittel, a

‘wicked problem’ can be defined as a “class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing” (qtd.

in Margolin 2002, p. 80). More recently, designers working on environmental, social and economic problems have also adopted this term. Jonas (2005) reviews some suggestions proposed by Rittel regarding the ‘wicked problem’ and the concept of design of the problem itself that refers to the fact that “the problem itself is not ‘given’, but has to be constructed by the stakeholders” (p. 3). This means understanding and formulating the problem depends not only on the information available but also on the persons involved and the way they ask questions, frame the problem and represent it.

5.2.1 Simon’s Social Planning

In his examination of successful social planning for a design process that represents a real-world situation, Herbert Simon (1996) describes the obstacles facing social designers and some techniques for overcoming them.

Starting with “problem representation”, the task here is about designing “intelligent information- filtering systems” without using numbers in order to make the problem as transparent as possible for decision-makers. Simon explains the objective of a real design problem as: “to allocate the time they [people] have available for receiving information so that they will get only the information that is most important and relevant to the decisions they will make” (p. 144). The outcome depends on how one conceptualizes the problem: different approaches will inevitably lead to different solutions.

The second obstacle is “planning”. According to Simon this means finding “ways of data [that are]

accommodating” to the specific environment. Simon links the quality of design with the quality of the data available, which leads him to ask an important question: How much trust can one place in data?

The answer is “prediction”; Simon views this as “the heart of the data problem for design” and the task here is “constructing alternative scenarios for the future and analyzing their sensitivity to errors in the theory and data” (Simon 1996, p. 148). Theory here refers to “theoretical understanding of the phenomena” and data here refers to “reliable data” about problem conditions. Simon’s approach to designing an acceptable future is based on three steps:

First, we select some planning horizons; [secondly] we can concentrate our analytic resources on examining alternative target states for the system for the short, middle, and long run […]

then turn our attention to constructing paths that lead from the present to that desired future.

(p. 148)

However, regarding ‘prediction’, Simon advises designers not to focus upon distant futures, because it is impossible to imagine remote events in detail; they should rather predict enough about the future in order to guide their present obligation. On the other hand, “feedback” mechanisms are very useful here for “dealing with changes in the external environment” through responding to disagreement between the actual situation and the desired one.

103 Simon’s explanation of “professional-client relations” differs from the traditional view in that he considers society as the client, and in order to enhance human behavior, designers should play a game with people to motivate them and thereby “to achieve goals in the changed environment”.

Simon uses “organization theory” to clarify how to motivate the individual. In an organization there are specific goals to be achieved and each member of this organization has his or her own role to play in order to accomplish these goals, but the efficiency of the whole depends on the balance between the encouragement provided by the organization and the contributions of the members.

Simon admits that “In any planning whose implementation involves a pattern of human behavior, that behavior must be motivated. Knowledge that ‘it is for your good’ seldom provides adequate motivation”, and he suggests, using game theory, to consider it as “a game between the planners and those whose behavior they seek to influence. The planners make their move (i.e., implement their design), and those who are affected by it then alter their own behavior to achieve their goals in the changed environment” (p. 163-164). The user’s role in the game is still reactive and not proactive; which means, in his opinion, the user is not skilled and expert enough to participate in a positive way in the planning process.

The “time and attention perspective” is another obstacle facing the social designer. Simon is suspicious about designers’ capabilities for anticipating the appropriate time and action involved in the development process and proposes “discounting the future”. This means allocating attention between present and future satisfaction by selecting planning horizons (short, medium, or long term) with respect to the required action. He explains that

the rate of interest should not be confused with another factor that discounts the importance of the future with respect to the present […] our unconcern with a distant future is not merely a failure of empathy but a recognition that (1) we shall probably not be able to foresee and calculate the consequences of our actions for more than short distances into the future and (2) those consequences will in any case be diffuse rather than specific. (Simon 1996, p. 158) Simon’s concept of “designing an evolving system” remains a powerful perspective of the social design process. Here the intention is to shift the focus from creating a final solution to generating starting points for new design processes. Simon writes: “each step of implementation created a new situation; and the new situation provided a starting point for fresh design activity” (p. 163). He explains “our essential task […] is simply to keep open the options for the future or perhaps even to broaden them a bit by creating new variety and new niches”, which he describes as “designing for future flexibility” (p. 167).

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Table 5- 4: Representing the Real-world Situation (created by the author, adapted from Simon 1996, pp. 141-166)

Obstacles Objectives Activities

Feedback Dealing with changes in the external environment

*Middle-run problem = to take action on a large scale toward development

- to establish initial conditions for the next stage of action

- to provide a starting point for fresh design activity

105