The following text is the pre-edited version of an interview of Hugh Dubberly by Dan Saffer. The interview was performed via email in February of 2006, and was later published in Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices.
What is systems design?
Systems design is simply the design of systems. It implies a systematic and rigorous approach to design—an approach demanded by the scale and complexity of many systems problems.
Where did it come from?
Systems design first appeared shortly before World War II as engineers grappled with complex communications and control problems. They formalized their work in the new disciplines of information theory, operations research, and cybernetics. In the 1960s, members of the design methods movement (especially Horst Rittel and others at Ulm and Berkeley) transferred this knowledge to the design world. Systems design continues to flourish at schools interested in design planning and within the world of computer science. Among its most important legacies is a research field known as design rationale, which concerns systems for making and documenting design decisions.
What can designers learn from systems design?
Today, ideas from design methods and systems design may be more relevant to designers than ever before—as more and more designers collaborate on designing software and complex information spaces. Frameworks suggested by systems design are especially useful in modeling interaction and conversation. They are also useful in modeling the design process itself.
What is the most important thing to be aware of in systems design?
A systems approach to design asks:
- For this situation, what is the system?
- What is the environment?
- What goal does the system have in relation to its environment?
- What is the feedback loop by which the system corrects its actions?
- How does the system measure whether it has achieved its goal?
- Who defines the system, environment, goal, etc.—and monitors it?
- What resources does the system have for maintaining the relationship it desires?
- Are its resources sufficient to meet its purpose?
Is systems design incompatible with user-centered design?
A systems approach to design is entirely compatible with a user-centered approach. Indeed, the core of both approaches is understanding user goals. A systems approach looks at users in relation to a context and in terms of their interaction with devices, with each other, and with themselves.
What is the relationship between systems design and cybernetics?
Cybernetics (the science of feedback) provides an approach to systems and a set of frameworks and tools. Among the most important ideas for designers:
- Definition of a system depends on point of view (subjectivity)
- We are responsible for our actions (ethical stance)
- All interaction is a form of conversation
- All conversation involves goals, understandings, and agreements
Are there times when systems design isn’t appropriate?
A systems approach to design is most appropriate for projects involving large systems or systems of systems. Such projects typically involve many people, from many disciplines, working together over an extended period of time. They need tools to cope with their project’s complexity: to define goals, facilitate communications, and manage processes. Solo designers working on small projects may find the same tools a bit cumbersome for their needs.
26 Comments
winston tupas
Jul 29, 2008
12:07 am
thank you very much in providing us an very important infprmation in system design…thank you
jasel javier
Nov 27, 2008
12:59 am
Thank you for giving us a summary type information. thanks a lot..
Jade Cadelina
Jan 7, 2009
7:05 pm
Very important article. Thank you.
Mary Gra ce Diaz
Nov 19, 2009
6:19 pm
Thank you for having this kind of information.
king samson taylor
Apr 5, 2011
2:59 am
thank you 4 your help,we are very grateful.
abdallah H. Nkini
Jun 6, 2011
3:18 pm
I like this article….its great
Salmi,Nelly
Oct 6, 2011
1:48 am
Thank a lot,next time include the consideration of it.
milan
Oct 23, 2011
12:39 am
thankx a lot for sharing me nice information
omar hadhar
Dec 26, 2011
5:28 am
increase the explanations in breafly but more understable by user thanks
har har
Jan 3, 2012
3:38 am
i have a question .. what is har har ..
zacharia justin
Feb 12, 2012
1:55 am
I like it. But u didn’t explain how can i design.
Emmanuel Lesela
Feb 13, 2012
3:38 am
this is very helpful to students but please provide more example because i found them very helpful.
md.danish anwer
Feb 19, 2012
10:13 pm
hi ,i really happy to share with you. i studied from your page. its a very important subject but finally i got it my dear friend. thanking you. MD. DANISH ANWER
naina gooreeah
Mar 29, 2012
12:02 am
thanks 4 this artice… its great…
tendai
Apr 21, 2012
12:02 am
Great Article, well presented!
terra shaddy
May 3, 2012
1:18 am
thanks for giving me this acticles it has help me alot
prince
Jun 20, 2012
10:14 am
dis article is jst ok, buh u guys should go deeper on d definition nxt tym……tnx alot
mohammad auwal
Jul 10, 2012
3:35 am
This summary short note has indeed covared many importand issues
Abdulrafiu Yusuf
Aug 31, 2012
2:10 am
I found this info highly usful. Thank u.
lindsay bird
Sep 12, 2012
4:36 am
thank u 4 the information its very relavent
Paultu Bukie
Sep 28, 2012
5:17 am
Thanks Hugh, your work on system design is very elaborate. Its has broadened my horizon. I am grateful!
rosemary adeola
Oct 17, 2012
10:50 am
Information Systems Is a large umbrella referring to systems designed to create, store, manipulate, or disseminate information. Example of an information system is a pencil and a piece of paper. The two objects themselves are just tools, but together they create a system for writing (information). The term Information systems has been around a lot longer than the computer, or the term information technology. These days the two are sometimes thought to be synonymous, but that, in most cases is a misconception.
Information technology falls under the information systems umbrella, but has nothing to do with systems per say. IT deals with the technology involved in the systems themselves, e.g. an information system like wiki.answers.com contains many information technologies. Servers, server operating systems, web-server software (IIS, Apache, et al), and code written for the web-server software (PHP, C#, VB, PERL, Ruby, et al). Even your computer and browser make up part of this information system. Like the pencil and paper example, each one of the mentioned parts of this information system in itself is an information technology.
Data processing Is any process that a computer program does to enter data and summarize, analyze or otherwise convert data into usable information. What is systems design? Systems design is simply the design of systems. It implies a systematic and rigorous approach to design—an approach demanded by the scale and complexity of many systems problems. Where did it come from? Systems design first appeared shortly before World War II as engineers grappled with complex communications and control problems. They formalized their work in the new disciplines of information theory, operations research, and cybernetics. In the 1960s, members of the design methods movement (especially Horst Rittel and others at Ulm and Berkeley) transferred this knowledge to the design world. Systems design continues to flourish at schools interested in design planning and within the world of computer science. Among its most important legacies is a research field known as design rationale, which concerns systems for making and documenting design decisions. It involves recording, analyzing, sorting, summarizing, calculating, disseminating and storing data. Because data are most useful when well-presented and actually informative, data-processing systems are often referred to as information systems. Nevertheless, the terms are roughly synonymous, performing similar conversions; data-processing systems typically manipulate raw data into information, and likewise information systems typically take raw data as input to produce information as output. Systems analysis is the study of sets of interacting entities, including computer systems analysis. This field is closely related to requirements analysis or operations research. It is also “an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone (referred to as the decision maker) identify a better course of action and make a better decision than he might otherwise have made.”[1] Systems design first appeared shortly before World War II as engineers grappled with complex communications and control problems. They formalized their work in the new disciplines of information theory, operations research, and cybernetics. In the 1960s, members of the design methods movement (especially Horst Rattle and others at Ulm and Berkeley) transferred this knowledge to the design world. Systems design continues to flourish at schools interested in design planning and within the world of computer science. Among its most important legacies is a research field known as design rationale, which concerns systems for making and documenting design decisions.
abipaul
Dec 21, 2012
12:51 pm
its something really necessary to know about it.. THANKS
MATTHEW
Dec 29, 2012
1:59 am
please i need help, i have a work that is cracking my brain here…….please would u help me with this question: Describe your university or college as a system. -what is the input? -what is output -what is boundary? -what is the components and their relationship? -the constraints -the environment…. I will b vry grateful if u can giv me a link on how dis question can b answer
System Design : INTERVIEW FAQS
Feb 18, 2013
10:14 am
[...] embedded microprocessor designs involve processing some kind of input to produce some kind of output, and [...]
Esther
Mar 28, 2013
1:08 am
Thanx for the information since its beneficial to us IT students