Extending system design tools to incorporate user- and contextual elements in developing future products and services
Year: 2017
Editor: Anja Maier, Stanko Škec, Harrison Kim, Michael Kokkolaras, Josef Oehmen, Georges Fadel, Filippo Salustri, Mike Van der Loos
Author: Liem, André
Series: ICED
Institution: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Section: Product, Services and Systems Design
Page(s): 161-170
ISBN: 978-1-904670-91-9
ISSN: 2220-4342
Abstract
This article aims to extend systems thinking to include user-, and contextual elements. Such extension should be angled towards increased human intervention and multiple stakeholder involvement in predetermined contexts. Bounded Rationality, Practice Theory and Situated Design were selected as core theoretical concepts to explain that the relationship between Prospective Ergonomics (PE) and Systems Thinking are built upon both positivist and constructivist worldviews. A systems approach embedded within PE intervention provided a foundation for extending structured systems design methods, such as Function-Task Interaction Matrix Method (FTIM), Dependence Structure Matrix (DSM), etc. As user-, and contextual elements were incorporated and juxtaposed in these extended matrices, a more comprehensive approach in using system design tools has been introduced to anticipate future products and services. Such an extended systems design approach significantly operationalises and systematises innovation, while allowing the flexibility to embrace inconsistencies, and emergent ways of strategising innovation and decision making.
Keywords: Product-Service Systems (PSS), Design methods, Human behaviour in design