I recently found myself defending a couple of (in my words) “great systemic design examples” from the accuse of being “obvious decisions” and “not of the design type”. The two examples were:
the 9€ unified train ticket experimentation in Germany in 2022, now extended to a 49€ monthly ticket, which gives access to any regional train and local public transport in the entire Germany
the OV Fiets scheme, which allows train subscribers in the Netherlands to rent a public bike at any of the 400 Dutch train stations for about 4.5€/24h
The argument against the use of the word “design” in these cases was to categorise the first initiative as mostly marketing-driven innovation, and the second one as an “obviously good decision”.
Granted that words are labels, and that it’s sometimes pointless to claim good initiatives under a certain flag (”great design!”) rather than another (”marketing success!”), the argument precisely showed the mental barriers and misconceptions around the word “design”.
First, these two initiatives are “design” because (most likely) resulting from long problem research, and deliberated ideation phases, and crafted execution. They both are extremely “simple” policies and executions — a simplicity that may give the illusion of a lack, rather than an exceptionally high presence, of design craft.
These two initiatives are “design” because (most likely) resulting from long problem research, and deliberated ideation phases, and crafted execution. They both are extremely “simple” policies and executions — a simplicity that may give the illusion of a lack, rather than an exceptionally high presence, of design craft.
Secondly, these two initiatives are “systemic” for their large, unusual broadening of traditional scopes, and for their exceptional level of collaboration across public authorities.
A 9€ train ticket is not a typical marketing campaign — no profit was most likely made. It is not a typical social intervention, as those are often addressed to specific demographics. And it is too aggressive for being an emission-slacking policy, as other policies would have been more cost-effective. It is all of these elements (usually taken care of by many different public authorities) combined into one single initiative — extremely “simple” at the surface, but riddled with operational complications and aiming at a carefully crafted bundle of subtle societal consequences.
Similarly systemic can be the decision of the Dutch rail authority, normally busy with operating the massive complexities of hundreds of trains, to venture into… bikes, complementing their fleet of trains with 22.000 bikes and managing 5 million rides a year.
In defence of the detractor, none of the decision makers who ideated (“designed”?) these initiatives had a “designer” in their job titles — and yet, differently from many other professionals in similar jobs in different countries, they managed to produce significantly better (although that’s yet to be confirmed), transformative policies and services for complex problems.
