Designers
have become a dangerous breed: Fifty-five years ago (1971), Victor Papanek began his influential
book, “Design for the real world,” with the following observation. “By
designing criminally unsafe automobiles that kill or maim nearly one million
people around the world each year, by creating whole new species of permanent
garbage to clutter up the landscape, and by choosing materials and processes
that pollute the air we breathe, designers have become a dangerous breed.” He was talking primarily
about industrial designers. However, we can easily extend the “dangerous breed”
argument to strategy, policy, intervention designs as well. So, the question
is, why do we have poor designs?
Here, I suggest
three fundamental causes. Perhaps there are more.
1. “I know it” syndrome: Outgoing IG(Prisons) at Tihar Jail had advised Kiran Bedi, “There is no work there! I was IG (Prisons) many years ago; I received just two files a day. So, I used to clear them from my home.” Perhaps the biggest challenge for a designer could be overconfidence. When I have decades of experience, why waste time listening to various stakeholders? Kiran Bedi managed to overcome this bias by deciding to go for a round of Prison no. 1 on day one of her posting. It is not easy to listen, but like the title of Kiran Bedi’s book on Tihar Jail experience, “It’s always possible”.
2. Personal agenda dominates: When Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates was asked about his association with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein last June in Congress, he said, “I was so focused on the possibility of raising funds for global health that I allowed that goal to override my better judgment”. Most of us carry several conflicting impulses or agendas simultaneously - make money, generate profit for the company, push a political ideology, accumulate more power or control, help the poor and needy, live sustainably, make the world a better place, etc. During our decision-making, one agenda dominates, without us being aware of it. Jay Forrester, the father of systems dynamics, says, “Sustainable development is an oxymoron.”
3. Don’t see the danger: All Indian citizens, including those with a passport and a voter ID, are now doing their best in proving that they are indeed Indian citizens. The Election Commission of India (ECI) initiative to revise the electoral list is called “Special Intensive Revision (SIR)”. Both online and offline submissions are allowed. In Karnataka, India’s one of the most advanced digitalizer state, the online voter registration “has struggled to keep pace, with its rigid interface, resulting in an abysmally low registration rate even among tech-savvy applicants,” noted a Times of India article last month. Out of more than 1 lakh online registration attempts, only a tiny fraction (0.2%) has successfully sailed through the portal. I know the challenges because I am one of those tiny fractions. Why is SIR enrolment design so poor? I feel one important reason is that the designers don’t see the danger of the poor design. The danger of denying voting rights to some citizens or the danger of designing leak-prone exams.
Unfortunately, Papanek was spot on more than half a century ago. Designers have indeed become a dangerous breed. Overconfidence bias, personal agendas, and inability to see the real danger make it hard to do good designs. In an AI world where a rogue AI agent is hacking your computer, is there any hope?