The design challenge—creating a Mosaic out of chaos

As designers we usually find ourselves—and our designs— in complex organizational settings, where diverse and often conflicting interests co-exist. Yet design is often seen as a process where the ‘one best solution’ is developed instead of allowing the rich mosaic of conflicting perspectives to be brought to light. Sooner or later the official pictures of the foreground are contradicted by current practice and create conflicts that may seriously jeep ardize systems built on them. With hindsight we can see how this happened, for example in the 1960’s and ‘70’s when mainframe system software was designed to follow the automation-like flow of production work, controlling work process and workers and dividing labour and tasks. In the 1980s, despite the use of new software tools and the emphasis on PC-based applications, designers focused on the tasks and procedures of given work flows instead of embarking on approaches that would have allowed them to learn about how new software might be appropriated, put to use and tailored in an organization.