Design in socio-technical system development: three angles in a common framework

Large-scale socio-technical systems, such as infrastructures for transport, energy and telecommunication, are not designed and then constructed according to plan. Rather, they develop over a long period of time as a result of countless changes. Nonetheless, most of these changes have been produced b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Design Research (JDR) 2007-01, Vol.5 (3), p.382-396
Main Author: Bots, Pieter W.G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Environmental Sciences
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Summary:Large-scale socio-technical systems, such as infrastructures for transport, energy and telecommunication, are not designed and then constructed according to plan. Rather, they develop over a long period of time as a result of countless changes. Nonetheless, most of these changes have been produced by design. Three types of designs ? system design, decision process design, and institutional design ? are identified as pertinent to large-scale socio-technical systems, and characterised by applying a generic conceptual framework to a fictitious case. This characterisation provides some insights into the variety of design problems that must be addressed in the context of socio-technical system development.
ISSN:1748-3050
1569-1551
DOI:10.1504/JDR.2007.014883