A transcript of S03E04 (332) of UX Podcast. James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom are joined by Sheryl Cababa to talk two years after the release of Closing the loop, to hear her reflections from that time, and look at how to apply systems thinking in practice.
This transcript has been machine generated and checked by Dave Trendall.
Transcript
Computer voice
Season Three, Episode Four.
[Music]
Sheryl Cababa
If you’re working in technology, you probably are working in a really complex space, and these are tools in which you can just kind of expand your thinking.
James Royal-Lawson
You Hello, everybody. Welcome to UX Podcast coming to you from Stockholm, Sweden. We are your hosts, James Royal Lawson.
Per Axbom
And Per Axbom.
James Royal-Lawson
Balancing business, technology, people and society with listeners all over the world, from Sri Lanka to Ireland.
Per Axbom
Sheryl Kababa is an international speaker and workshop facilitator who also helps educate the next generation of Human Centered Design and Engineering students at the University of Washington.
James Royal-Lawson
She is also the author of The Rosenfeld media book, closing the loop, systems thinking for designers.
Per Axbom
And we talked to Cheryl around the time of the launch of the book, back in 2022 and published as Episode 308.
James Royal-Lawson
As is often the case when we re-interview book author sometime after their books have been released, they often have interesting reflections on their work now that some time has passed.
James Royal-Lawson
Though it’s been at least a year and a half since we talked to you in connection with the release of your book, closing the loop, beginning of 2023, and I know you’ve been touring the world since then, doing talks and workshops and spreading the good word about systems thinking.
James Royal-Lawson
What have you noticed? What have you learned during that period of time, since the release of the book, during that tour around?
Sheryl Cababa
First, nice to be back. Nice to be back on the podcast. And I have to say, well, one thing I’ve learned is I somehow had this idea in my mind that I would be done writing the book, and I would never have to talk about systems thinking.
James Royal-Lawson
Bit of closure that finishing the book would be a closure point,
Sheryl Cababa
Right. And that’s a really silly idea, because of course, you have to run around talking about the idea and running workshops, which has been great. It’s just, it’s really interesting. When I finished the book, I was kind of like, oh, that’s done. I never have to think about this ever again. I never have to speak about it. And then, of course –
Per Axbom
You were trying to get it out of your system?
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah, I was getting it out of my system. And then as soon as it was published, of course, the lovely Lou Rosenfeld was like, Okay, now you go on a bunch of podcasts and talk about it. So I was like, Okay, that’s great. I’m ready to talk about it. Because, as you know, post-pandemic, there’s been a lot of supply chain problems and what have you. So it took a long time for my book to be published, longer than it normally was pre-pandemic, instead of something like six to eight weeks, it ended up being four months between when I finished the book and when it was published.
Sheryl Cababa
And I think that break was actually really good because it allowed me the time to get over it and not talk about it again. And then when the four months was up, I was like, Okay, I’m ready. I’m ready to discuss what was in the book. And so it’s been really great. I’ve done quite a few conferences, workshops, etc.
Sheryl Cababa
I talk about it within my consulting work. And, yeah, there have been some really interesting things that have jumped out at me, almost like a meta discussion around power, and whether designers feel like they have it or not, or strategy, and whether designers feel like that’s part of their job or not.
Sheryl Cababa
The comment I get most frequently, or the question I get most frequently, especially from junior designers or individual contributor designers who are kind of working in their organizations in UX, is, well, I don’t really know where I can use systems thinking, like these frameworks and things like that that you’ve written about, or that you’ve talked about. I don’t know where I can actually use this in my work, because my job is to design some screeny thing.
Sheryl Cababa
I’m literally focused on one feature for the last year, or something along those lines, and I don’t feel like there’s any opportunity for me to engage in systems thinking. And it made me feel like that how to engage in systems thinking is something I should have written about in the book. Because somehow, for me, it’s never been an issue, and maybe that is because I am fundamentally a design strategist. I’m a design researcher and design strategist, so I find myself in strategic decision making, whether that’s the plan or not, and so I didn’t perceive that as a problem, until after I started going out into world and talking about it.
Per Axbom
So that surprised you.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah. So I think, for example, one of my goals with writing the book was I want a designer to pick up this book, kind of discover some of these very practical frameworks and then be able to maybe bring it into their work environment as soon as the following week, like it should be something you can just do, kind of straight out the box. And it was sort of filling a gap for me in terms of how I was – I felt unable to employ systems thinking when I first started using it in my work.
Sheryl Cababa
I was working in kind of wicked problem spaces like global health, and was feeling like the usual human centered design tools that I was using were not equipped for these problem spaces that are kind of big and complex, and had a lot of stakeholders, had a lot of different power dynamics and incentives. And so that’s when I started looking into systems thinking, studying it.
Sheryl Cababa
Starting with reading Donella Meadows Thinking in Systems, which I still recommend as the primer for systems thinking, but it didn’t feel like something you could just take straight into practice and just like, Oh, I’m gonna run a one hour workshop with my team next week, and I’m going to use something that is a systems thinking analysis tool.
Sheryl Cababa
So that’s why I write about things like the iceberg model, which is you look at events, and you kind of look at the structures beneath that, the underlying mental models, as well as things like the futures wheel, which helps you understand the primary, secondary, tertiary effects of the kinds of things that you’re designing, and you can –
Per Axbom
That strikes me, both those models strike me as something that you could use, even if you’re just working with one aspect of your interface.
Sheryl Cababa
Yes!
James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, sorry, no, just struggling a little bit, do you think that the problem with this, if you’re a designer, is it that some people are pre-disposed with an ability to think in systems? Or is it the job role? So I’m trying to ask this, is it your role that you’re in at the moment that is the problem? As in, you know, I’m Junior, or I’m working in the same feature as I have done for a year? Or is it there’s some kind of predisposition that you are a systems person, or you’re not?
Sheryl Cababa
I do think it’s a mindset, right? Like, I think this is why in the book, I have these little asides, kind of throughout it, called system spotting, because it’s a way of looking at the world. So an example that I often use is, why are there trees in some neighborhoods and not others? And if you were to do an iceberg diagram of that as sort of a problem space, or what have you, you would find all of these underlying structures of why that is.
Sheryl Cababa
You know, there’s kind of institutionalized racism that’s manifest in infrastructure. It’s manifest in the built environment. There’s mental models underlying that that some people are worth more than others, and it just kind of works its way up into these things that you do see, you know, and you can kind of think about a lot of different problem spaces that way, or just observable things, probably have these underlying kind of motivations, mental models, structure, etc.
Sheryl Cababa
And I don’t think when I started my own journey into systems thinking, I don’t think I was necessarily predisposed to think about things that way. I mean, I spent a lot of years as a product designer at Microsoft, at Philips, among other organizations, and really, I can see how somebody can get really narrow in terms of, like, I just need to make this thing work, and I need a user who’s using this thing in the moment to be able to do whatever it is they need to do.
Sheryl Cababa
And I’m not thinking about anyone and more than their individual capacity to use a digital app or something like that. The problem with that approach is that there’s all of these things that you don’t see that are kind of affecting whether your design decisions end up being good in the long term or not, right? And I think, yeah, even if you’re just working on a feature and you’re working on a feature for a year, I think the problem with having that narrow mindset is that so much of what we’re designing now, especially you’re working in the digital space, you’re working in UX, you’re designing stuff that is very likely being used at scale.
Sheryl Cababa
So if you’re designing things for consumers, there might be millions of people who are kind of using whatever it is you’re designing. If you’re designing things for healthcare systems, there might be millions of people also who are affected by what you’re designing, especially if it’ssomething like an electronic record system. I mean, the most, like boring things can have, like, a huge impact, right, in terms of having an impact even on people who aren’t using those products.
Sheryl Cababa
And then you think about the diversity of the people who are using it and how their experiences might differ, those are all good reasons to keep systems thinking in the purview of what you’re doing. And, I mean, I have to say, it felt kind of disappointing that a lot of the response that I was getting was. Okay, first, I’m impressed by designers desire to have impact, right?
Sheryl Cababa
I think especially young designers, there’s just a desire to have a positive impact on the world, and so they’re really interested in sort of the concepts that I’m thinking about, but oftentimes the struggle or the things that they come to me about, if I’ve just given a talk, and people are waiting to talk to me, or something like that, or students reach out to me, also my own students, when I teach, it’s the question of, yeah, but you know, like you’re working in the social impact space.
Sheryl Cababa
So this is just like part of what you do, you’re not working at just like a technology company, kind of designing a feature, or designing a screen, or my friend is working at a technology company, and she’s been working on one button for one year. How is she supposed to incorporate this? These are kinds of the questions I get.
Sheryl Cababa
And in some ways, I mean, I kind of don’t want to say this in a way, I’m like, disappointed by their lack of imagination in terms of how they can use different kinds of tools, and I’ve literally said, you can use an iceberg model or futures wheel just to analyze how your organization works, or to work with the decision makers in your organization to understand the things that affect your organization.
Sheryl Cababa
Like, why is our team having a hard time hiring. I’ve literally done this with organization. I had done an iceberg model about why there’s so much attrition in a company. And I think it just even for the smallest things, it helps you expand your lens. And there might not be something totally actionable that can come out of that, but it’s a practiced way of looking at things that where you might be able to eventually identify these other leverage points, or something within your ways of working, or within your organizational management, or something like that, that could have an impact eventually.
Per Axbom
Which often leads to innovation, because you’re learning in more stuff, expanding your lens, understanding how things work outside that button that you’re designing.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
The context. I mean, you’re getting so much context from that mapping exercise to know where you are in the whole space.
Sheryl Cababa
Yes, 100%. Yeah and maybe there’s a big expectation that however you use these tools is going to be, like, earth shattering. It’s going to create an avenue for Ethics in my company and it’s like the expectation doesn’t necessarily match what they view as their lack of power in order to kind of make that happen.
Sheryl Cababa
But it’s kind of like, well, I don’t know, you can start having those kinds of conversation. Let’s say you’re concerned about the ethics of your technology company. These are really good, accessible ways to have conversations about your products, right? Do a futures wheel on a feature decision that you’re making, and you will discover something that could be a positive effect. It could be a negative effect. You might identify new opportunities. And I love that you mentioned innovation Per.
Sheryl Cababa
Because this is how I kind of sell it to executives as well, or decision makers. Is like, Oh, if you think like systems analysis is a waste of time, it’s not because you might find points of innovation that you never knew existed before. So are you willing to do that? And it’s like, oh, that’s like, a really promising exercise, and you can do it really quickly. Can it be an hour with your team?
James Royal-Lawson
You’ve said bringing ethics into organizations there. I mean, if these designers are coming to systems thinking, hoping it will lead to a more ethical organization or product or whatever it is. That in itself is a really good thing, isn’t it? They’ve come that far in that they’re seeing that this might be a way forward.
Sheryl Cababa
Right, yeah. And I think that’s not a bad thing. And I think there’s a lens they’re using to – I don’t know, there’s a gap between their expectations and what they think they have the power to do. And I’m kind of like you, one of the things that I’ve said before is like, so what you’re saying is you don’t think you, as a practitioner, have a seat at the table, in terms of this kind of decision making.
Sheryl Cababa
I’ve never heard an engineer talk about not having a seat at the table, but I hear designers talk about that all the time, like they’re always about, do we have a seat at the table? Do we not have a seat at the table? It’s like it’s a neurosis, within our discipline.
Per Axbom
Is it like you want a quick win? I want it to happen. Great. Whereas change really takes time.
James Royal-Lawson
Do you know, I have a theory here about this one.
Sheryl Cababa
Okay, let me hear it. Because,
James Royal-Lawson
With engineers, the developers, right, they’re writing the code. If they want to change something, they just change it. And they just, you know, they get someone to, kind of like, you know, check their code. That’s what they do, and it’s deployed.
Per Axbom
They’re at the end of the conveyor belt.
James Royal-Lawson
Well, you’re under the surface. Whereas designers, usually it’s visual design. I mean, yes, I know we design with words and we design with voices and so on, but there’s often a sign off element to designs that someone needs to go, tick, yes, you can go forward with that.
James Royal-Lawson
Whereas with code, with developing, they don’t have not the same sign off, the problem is the product manager managers not going to look at the people on the table, around the table, they’re not going to want to see behind the curtain and go, Oh no, you’ve used an if statement there, oh no, no, no, no. You should be using something else to that. No, no, that’s wrong.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah, it’s so it’s, it’s funny, because there’s maybe higher up decision makers, like, they don’t even want to know what you’re doing. As an engineer, I guess, because they’re just like, Wait, I don’t even know how to interpret what you’re doing. Whereas, you know you’ve brought up the example of visual design, everybody thinks they know how to interpret visual design, right? And so whether they’re skilled at it or not.
Sheryl Cababa
And so, maybe there is some sort of mindset that you’re trained in as a designer that tells you you are not empowered to make certain decisions within an organization. But that said, I’m kind of some of my response is a little bit tough cookies. You want change? Then be part of making change.
Per Axbom
I love what you said about Well, we really, really want to make an impact, but I’m not gonna try anything, because I hear so many people in the same manner complain about, well, we don’t get to do user research. Wait, why are you asking permission? I thought that was your job. Why are you asking permission for all these things? Go out and do it, because that’s what you’re supposed to do.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah. I don’t know. I mean being part of design education, I’m like, Oh, my God, am I training design students to think this way? So disappointed in myself. And this is a big reason that I’ve come out of this sort of last year plus, of talking about this book, this is one big takeaway. I should have really written about the power dynamics and the design practice, because there is a way of talking about this work, of just like inserting yourself into sort of strategic decision making by maybe, I don’t know if this is right way to describe it, but like Trojan horsing that strategy through these frameworks that seem really simple and really like accessible and maybe feel like fun design exercises.
Sheryl Cababa
And it’s funny that for many people, the first response is like, I don’t even know where I can use this. You’re talking about big problem spaces. You’re talking about wicked problems. That’s not where I work, but it’s like, Oh, you do work there.
Sheryl Cababa
You work in a big technology company, you work in a small technology company where you have a diverse subset of users. You are there. You are in a wicked problem space. You just don’t know it, because digital technology often has these intersections with different existing systems. I do a lot of work in ed tech, and I heard one of my stakeholders say, the other day, you know the inequities that are inherent in the education system, Ed Tech doesn’t solve those inequities. Those inequities upstream need to be solved first in order for Ed Tech to be equitable.
Sheryl Cababa
And I thought that was a really good observation, because so much of what happens in the technology sector is this kind of problem solving that assumes that this will fix what are actually kind of like big underlying societal problems. And it’s like, no that never happens. There’s this book that I’m a big fan of by Justin Reich called Failure to Disrupt. And it’s all about how Ed Tech has failed to do what it says is going to do, over and over and over again.
Sheryl Cababa
You know, he talks about massive online courses. It was like an obsession in, like, 2010 or something like that. And it was like, it’s going to revolutionize, like, no one’s going to be going to college. I think, I think it was Clay Christensen that said colleges are going to be gone by 2025, or 2030 or something. It’s like, oh, well, that hasn’t happened.
Per Axbom
You’re seeing it now because Khan Academy, of course, is deploying AI.
Sheryl Cababa
That’s right. So they keep saying this over and over again, but it’s well, why do you use these sort of earth shattering Silver Bullet technologies, not disrupt like the underlying education system is because there’s all of these incentives, systemic decision makers, bureaucracies, all of the things that when you come in as an outsider to the education system, you’re not realizing that all of those things have to be disrupted first before this technology can disrupt something.
Sheryl Cababa
So what it did instead, if you take the example of massive online courses, what it did instead was reinforce some of the existing power structures, those courses were based in places like Harvard, which are elite institutions, and they were like, how are you going to make education equitable through a passive course that’s hosted by Harvard? That doesn’t make sense that you’re trying to make equity changes through an institution like that, that has like this, billions of dollars endowment serving a really limited number of students, and also private, by the way.
Sheryl Cababa
So it’s not even designed to have an impact on diverse citizens. Anyway, I’m going down this rabbit hole of the domain space in which I work, which is education, because you can talk about it forever as a wicked problem space, but it is a good example of like, if you’re working in technology, you probably are working in a really complex space, and these are tools in which you can just kind of expand your thinking. Like, how does policy affect the decisions you’re making?
Sheryl Cababa
A lot of us are starting, maybe not starting, maybe some of us have been doing it for a long time, integrating AI into our technology work. Now there’s lots of regulation that’s either being proposed or is kind of being expanded within this space. How can you use systems thinking to kind of understand those dynamics and the potential consequences of that, both positive and negative.
Per Axbom
And the diversity, equity, inclusion aspects of using AI even.
Sheryl Cababa
Absolutely, yeah. And who’s developing it, and what are their incentives for developing this? Because right now, you look at open AI, and it’s just like, well, there’s a thing called money, and that kind of drives their development of this, the way they’re engaging with the regulatory environment.
Sheryl Cababa
Because if the big players – it’s interesting, the big players want regulation, because that locks them in, and it makes it harder for others to enter the market. And so it’s just like things like that. If all of these things can be sort of analyzed with a systems thinking lens, and that helps you kind of think about, what does it mean to be designing solutions within these spaces.
Sheryl Cababa
You don’t have to change everything about your organization. But I think just like creating these forms of awareness that we don’t usually integrate into our ways of doing things, kind of opens the door for that kind of thinking.
Per Axbom
So what I’m hearing really is, I’m working on this small thing. And I think it doesn’t really matter if I apply systems thinking perspective, because I think I know everything. And I think maturing and growing older, I think what I’ve learned the most is I know less and less and less. So as a designer, as a junior designer, you really should be extremely curious about what do I not know about this problem space, even though I think it’s a tiny thing, what other things do I affect and are affected by the outside world that I’m working on? Because there are so many things. There are whatever you’re working on, there are so many things, and the tools in your book can help you uncover those things.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping and I’m not going, I’m not putting everybody on blast here. Like, wow, you guys don’t have any imagination whatsoever. It’s just a really common question that I get. And genuinely, I have never actually said tough cookies to anybody. I’m just saying, hey, listen, there are ways you can use this, it doesn’t take that long. Start with trying to do this with your own team, safe space, safe environment.
Sheryl Cababa
And then see if you can kind of expand it to other teams, other decision makers, and see if this can kind of help take a more expansive lens, especially as you’re making decisions about what should we design next? And yeah I hope that people feel less of a barrier around that sort of thing. I just don’t like hearing that designers feel small within their organizations, right?
Sheryl Cababa
Because it’s like you have a lot of power as somebody who’s a creative thinker, as somebody who’s a critical thinker. A lot of technology companies need critical thinking at this moment in time, and I think designers are really good at bringing that lens to table, which is why, oftentimes, when I did a research project I worked on this tool a few years ago called the ethical Explorer, and it was for the Omidyar Network, and we did research around technology organizations like startups and how they integrate any sort of ethics thinking within their design and development processes. And oftentimes, these processes, these initiatives, will start with the designers. And there’s something about the design practice where, when I say this, gonna sound like other people don’t, but designers have a conscience. You know what I mean?
James Royal-Lawson
It does sound exactly like that.
Sheryl Cababa
Kind of have this kind of built in conscience, and I think they feel a little bit of like responsibility towards thinking about or trying to have the things that they work on have a positive impact and also taking that critical thinking lens to it, knowing that there could be unintended consequences to what we’re doing.
Sheryl Cababa
And so I was really pleasantly surprised when I heard that, when I was my team and I were doing that research, was like, Oh, this is a lot of this is starting with designers. That’s amazing. And that was a tool that was explicitly meant for technology teams to use. And so I’m like, Yeah, we just got to get this in the hands of designers, because, they’re the ones who are going to be running these workshops. They’re going to be having these conversations with their teams. And so I do think they can play that role. If they feel empowered to play that role, they can play that role.
James Royal-Lawson
And you must, I mean, I suppose you must have, as well, seen some examples where that has actually happened. Because we’re talking about some of the complaints that seat at the table and so on. But if it does start with designers, and you believe that they can use systems thinking to be that better, starting point.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
Have you got any moments where you’ve picked up on that?
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah, usually when my team has been brought on to technology organizations to do a little bit of consulting in the space, or running workshops or teaching how to do some systems thinking or developing, helping them develop their own tools around ethics. It’s come from the designers showing interest and introducing us to those who hold the purse in the organization. And so I think it’s just like, I don’t know, making noise in your organization is not a bad thing, right? Especially if you feel like there’s a gap in sort of the thinking around things like this.
Sheryl Cababa
It doesn’t mean that you don’t believe technology can make a positive difference. It’s just you want the technology to be the best that it can be right. And I think that designers have, many of them anyway, have inherently baked that into the what they feel like is their responsibility, but then they feel like, Oh, I’m just working on this button. I mean, I’m never given the opportunity to do this stuff.
Sheryl Cababa
And like you were saying, Why do you have to be given permission to do that? I think don’t wait for the permission. Just, just do it. I think that’s why I was kind of like, yeah, you might not be able to get the budget to do a gigantic causal loop diagram Systems Thinking project on this entire problem space that lasts three months, but you can run a one hour workshop and do a futures wheel.
Sheryl Cababa
And I think have some prompts with you about ethics. Use some there’s many kind of like technology ethics frameworks, for example, and bring those to the table. And I think that’s where you kind of start building the momentum for that sort of organizational change potentially.
James Royal-Lawson
I’m thinking, you know what we’re talking about in the realm of design, for designers and systems thinking, this is a mapping exercise In itself.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
And, I’m really looking forward to you producing –
Sheryl Cababa
The meta map?
James Royal-Lawson
Well yeah, because we are nowadays, we’re not just kind of like one happy little bunch of designers, like we were maybe 20 years ago or 25 years ago. Now, this is global. The number of designers is into the millions rather than just kind of 1000s. So this is a systems problem, systems issue. And what you’re talking about with the strategic influence, or kind of just working one little button, there are underlying things, forces at play, interconnecting systems at play.
Sheryl Cababa
Yeah, that’s really interesting observation. I do think it deserves some sort of systems mapping exercise of some sort with design leaders. I think there’s actually kind of like, I feel like there’s a bit of hand wringing around the design practice in general right now, because there’s been so much senior leadership that’s been laid off in big technology companies, and it’s a little bit searching for,why is that? When it feels like we had finally gained influence, and now maybe there’s some concern about whether we as a practice are able to show our value enough to continue kind of having that quote, unquote seat at the table.
Sheryl Cababa
And, yeah, I don’t know. Maybe there’s definitely a connection to design education and how we’re, I don’t know, how a lot of design education I think involves teaching us how to produce and engage in sort of tactical decision making and like the use of tools. I used to joke in one of my previous organizations, I sat on the research and strategy team, but I was also, because my background is as a UX designer, I also sat in on the UX team sort of meetings, and it was funny, at the research and strategy team meetings we would always be kind of talking about, in some ways, like, philosophical approaches to design.
Sheryl Cababa
So having some of these conversations about ethics and what have you, as well as what are some methods within design research that can better inform strategy and things like that. When I would attend the UX design meetings, it was always about like, what’s the latest tool? Are we all using figma now? What’s going on? Have you guys tried this other tool? And I’m just like, Why are we always talking about tools here? There’s so many other things to talk about in terms of advancing the practice, but it felt like it ended up being like, what are we using to prototype now?
Sheryl Cababa
And it was, I don’t know, it felt really limiting, and I didn’t think it needed to be as limiting as it was. So there was a point where it’s kind of like, okay guys, we need to bring like topics to the table that are not just around, here’s some one person on the team who’s tried this new tool, and they’re going to show you how to use it.Oh my god, you guys meet like, as a full team once a month, and it’s always about what tool are we not using anymore, what tool are we using now? So there is something in design education that’s steering us in that direction that needs to be resolved I think.
Per Axbom
Yes. Bring a new topic to the table to your next meeting. I think that’s an excellent suggestion. Thank you so much, Cheryl.
Sheryl Cababa
Thank you for having me back. I feel like I just went on like, a 30 minute rant, and I feel a little bit bad about it, because I’m kind of not blaming, I think you’re right, James, it is a systems thinking problem. And when I talk about systems, Okay, so at the end of the book, I say, don’t blame the lettuce. It’s a quote, oh my gosh. Why is his name escaping me? The famous monk.Okay. Sorry, I apologize, but he says, Don’t blame the lettuce. It’s not the lettuce’s fault if it doesn’t thrive. It’s the system around it, right? It’s like, is it getting enough soil? Or, you know, the soil? Is it getting enough water? Is it in good soil? Is it getting enough sun? Like, how do you help the lettuce thrive?
Sheryl Cababa
And so maybe we can think about our design practice in that way is like, Oh, we’re young design practitioners. They’re the lettuce, and it’s not their fault if this is a limited purview. It’s the fault of all of the rest of us who were in charge of this practice, whether design educators or design leaders or what have you.
Sheryl Cababa
How do we help the lettuce thrive. And I feel like this is something that’s the whole responsibility of a design practice, and it’s just been eye opening to me and it doesn’t make me blame them. It makes me a little sad that that’s like talented people coming out of design school, and sometimes this is their perspective. It’s like, I don’t have power in my organization to make change. So, yeah, we should. We need to change everything, like make change now, I think it’s design leaders.
James Royal-Lawson
I think it’s definitely a systems problem.
Sheryl Cababa
Yes.
James Royal-Lawson
Definitely.
Sheryl Cababa
I’ll be looking for that map from you.
James Royal-Lawson
Oh it’s me doing it now.
Sheryl Cababa
You suggested it, it’s your responsibility.
James Royal-Lawson
I was expecting you to come and the the third interview you with you would be you presenting the results of your research to me.
Sheryl Cababa
Send it to me and we’ll analyze.
Per Axbom
We’ll put the map in the show notes when James is done.
James Royal-Lawson
Thanks. That’s my summer gone.
Sheryl Cababa
That’s what you get for bringing it up.
James Royal-Lawson
So I’d completely forgotten how much I got bullied into producing a systems map towards the end of our conversation there.
Per Axbom
Maybe not bullied you actually, it was your suggestion.
James Royal-Lawson
It was my suggestion. But I was kind of thinking that the systems thinking expert, will be the one that picked up on that and thought, Yes, I’ll do that, and I’ll deliver it to you pronto.
Per Axbom
Ahhh, but as a teacher, of course, she wants the student to do it, and then she will reflect back on her work.
James Royal-Lawson
Yeah. I know I realized that listening back, that she was she was encouraging me. Was Cheryl. I have to say that I’d actually completely forgot about my homework. As completely classic student I am there I got given the homework, and then abruptly completely forgot about it. And listening back now, I realized about it. So I did actually start to map out this. I said this.
James Royal-Lawson
So what I did was I started at a starting point of an individual Digital Designer. I thought, Okay, I’ll map out from there a little bit. So I got as far as mapping out, tools, technologies, there’s the professional network of a design community, you’ve got your clients, projects or employers, and then your education, but also your your future education.
James Royal-Lawson
So continuous learning, skills,
Per Axbom
That makes, yeah, that makes sense.
James Royal-Lawson
And then I’ve branding, your own branding, or website or you may even say portfolio. And the market or industry you operate in, public sector, private sector, and various parts of that. Quickly got quite a lot of components in a map. And also quite quickly start to realize that, of course, there’s this feedback loops, bi-directional feedback loops.
James Royal-Lawson
But the thing I’ve thought about, I’ve started to focus on, really quite quickly, was the one to do with tools and clients or organizations that you often, within job ads or even requests for projects and so on. It will list tools. So when it comes to classic that feedback loop, but that made me feel that, though that feedback loop was quite a strong one towards tools. I mean, there was just clearly an amplification going on there that tools will be really quite important. And if you look at other parts of it, for example, the design community, or feedback about the work you’ve produced, so rather than what you’ve done, it’s like how you’ve done it.
Per Axbom
Exactly, yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
It was less tangible. And as a result of that, I suppose weaker. It just didn’t feel like that got amplified and boosted in the same way as the focus on tools did.
Per Axbom
Right. That makes a lot of sense, obviously. I mean, because we have this discussion a lot about how how focused designers are on tools, and they are, of course, because it’s expected of them, or at least people expect to be asked to work with these tools at their next place of employment, and they want to excel at them. They want to be better than other people at them, because that’s how they compare themselves with others.
Per Axbom
So it becomes core parts. And now, as I’m saying this, I’m actually thinking, so how do I take that knowledge and apply it? If I want people to work more on systems thinking, then can I do something similar to what Miro and mural do, where they integrate templates? So maybe if the iceberg model was part of the tool I’m using, so it’s actually integrated into there. Remind me to look at the bigger picture. Making now, making use of the insight you uncovered when making your map, right? Yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
Yeah. I think this is, this is already what I’ve seen just from doing a quick bit of systems thinking, system mapping. Then I’m getting the feeling that I can’t beat the tools. The tools are such an important component of our world as digital designers that exactly what you’re saying now, I’ve got to then work out, how can I amplify other feedback loops in this diagram to impact on the tools, without it being in a way that’s compatible with that feedback loop.
James Royal-Lawson
Because I’m not going to be able to go into an organization, and we mentioned the interview, change takes time, and you can’t go in there and, like, rip out some kind of design process. You can’t just kind of see it. Now, we’re not using figma anymore, just like that. It doesn’t it’s just it’s going to be too, too aggressive, too much damage to the system in one go. So it’s not going to accept it.
Per Axbom
At the same time. The more of a senior designer you become, the more comfortable you feel working without even touching the tools. So alongside the integration of these tools into the current workflow, you also need to build that confidence and that curiosity and that way of working that is more strategic, I suppose.
James Royal-Lawson
Yes, yes. And that’s the supporting structures aspect of this, isn’t it, that as a senior designer who feels confident without the scaffolding of the tools, it’s then your responsibility to boost the younger designers in their confidence and skills around these tools. So maybe is this about conversations that we need to keep having, keep lifting the the actual thing we’re doing when we’re using a tool to do it.
Per Axbom
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love this, because you just did this an hour ago or less than an hour ago. Already, we’re thinking about, well, what are the types of solutions. So this is an example of how we can apply Cheryl’s advice and tools to a defined topic area quite quickly.
James Royal-Lawson
Yes, we don’t need to solve this. This is not, in fact, in some ways, this is a wicked problem. I don’t think we will be able to solve it directly, like that, but we’ve actually managed to do, I guess, exactly what Cheryl asked. We’ve applied this, or hoped, rather, we’ve applied this really quickly, really quite simply, to something quite complex. And it’s got me and you working on – we’re being creative now. We’re thinking about ways we can, we can manipulate this system and adjust it and impact it. And you know, that’s wonderful. Like you say, this has not taken as much effort to get here.
Per Axbom
And it’s so much easier than if we just started with a blank paper and tried to talk about it without having that structure that the tool provides.
James Royal-Lawson
Or, I think this feels easier to grapple than if you just start with a straight problem statement.
Per Axbom
Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. And you see how it’s helping you see the right problems, instead of assuming that you know what the problem is.
James Royal-Lawson
And I’ve got a different lens to look at the problems through, when I’ve got this simple systems map of an individual Digital Designer, I can then appreciate how do I apply systems thinking in my role problem better?
Per Axbom
Yeah, absolutely lovely.
James Royal-Lawson
Wow. Wasn’t expecting that, but I kind of was, I don’t know,
Per Axbom
Just do it.
James Royal-Lawson
Exactly Per. To wrap up this little bit there, I was thinking back to some of the times, you know, years ago, in the very beginning of the lifetime of this podcast. We’re going back a few years now, like maybe 14 years or so, then we did a lot of this guerrilla stuff, or kind of ‘just do it’ stuff. You know, some of our first interviews we did gorilla like at conferences. We didn’t get invited to conferences. We just turned up and recorded interviews anyway.
Per Axbom
Very true.
James Royal-Lawson
I mean, you know, we did user research by going out into the street and asking people, I mean, all this kind of stuff. You just didn’t ask permission. You just did it.
Per Axbom
Exactly.
James Royal-Lawson
Um, maybe we just do need to do it.
Per Axbom
Definitely. And as per usual, you found some recommended listening for us, didn’t you? James,
James Royal-Lawson
I did in the intro, we already mentioned one of them, which is of course, our first interview with Sheryl about her book, which I said, is episode 308 that’s a really good one to listen to. On top of that, though, I’m gonna give you a second one, and that’s episode 242, even further back. Let’s figure it out with Stephen Anderson and Carl Fast, which again, the whole thing with thinking and thinking about thinking, Stephen and Carl did do a lot of that in that book.
Per Axbom
Yeah, excellent. I’ve completely forgotten about that one. We don’t do a lot of the two people interviews.
James Royal-Lawson
Pick it up and read it again per, it’s really good.
Per Axbom
Okay, looking forward to looking at more of your meta systems map, James. Remember to keep moving.
James Royal-Lawson
See You on the other side.
[Music]
Per Axbom
So James, I just downloaded this VR app to simulate the Titanic.
James Royal-Lawson
All right, a VR app to simulate the Titanic.
Per Axbom
Yeah, but I can’t use it’s still syncing.
This is a transcript of a conversation between James Royal-Lawson, Per Axbom, and Sheryl Cababa recorded in May 2024 and February 2025 and published as episode 332 (S03E04) of UX Podcast.