Designing Design: The Weeble Principle

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If you're an American between the ages of 5 and 50, or the parent of children within this demographic, chances are you are familiar with Weebles®, and their catchy slogan:

"Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!"

And sure enough, try as you might to knock one over, inevitably it will right itself. Well, it turns out these little guys not only provide youngsters with hours of fascination, they also provide a valuable principle for process & event designers:

Create a design that won't fall apart when it takes an unexpected hit.

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Designing Design: Take 3 SiPs

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Russian.dolls.hugeset.arp.jpgMaintain at least 3 Systems-In-Play throughout the process you are designing. Generally speaking, I'll call these "metasystem," "system-in-focus," and "nested system."

The system in focus is the system we intend to most directly engage and influence. It is through this system that we expect to form the basis for the decisions and actions that the design process evokes in the participants.

A metasystem is one that contains the system in focus as well as others in an integrated fashion. Wikipedia offers a useful description:

"A metasystem is formed by the integration of a number of initially independent components, such as molecules, cells or individiduals, and the emergence of a system steering or controlling their interactions. As such, the collective of components becomes a new, goal-directed individual, capable of acting in a coordinated way. This metasystem is more complex, more intelligent, and more flexible in its actions than the initial component systems."

A nested system is, of course, a system that is one of many component systems that are all integrated into the system in focus. 

In essence, what I'm saying here is engage with your design as if it were a matryoshka, albeit probably not quite at the depth of pictured above.

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