One of the most effective ways to build better products is looking at problems and opportunities from a system level.
The first step is accepting that all systems have constraints.
Constraints are rules which must be respected for an approach to function properly.
For example, an airplane cannot fly without elevating off the ground—a constraint of the physical world.
The next step is to identify constraints.
Once you understand the constraints of a system, the last step is considering how design might affect those systems.
This requires empathy for stakeholders and users.
It would help put yourself in their shoes to imagine how they might use your product, what needs it will fulfill, and the trade-offs.
There's no one right way to practice system thinking, but here are four tips to get started:
✨Decompose a system into its parts and how they interact and then consider the limitations of each part.
How might you improve your product by thinking about it as an ecosystem that involves multiple stakeholders with different needs?
Check: https://bit.ly/3BDZFsH
⭐Identify key performance metrics for your product and research how they're measured using data.
For example, which factors are included when measuring the conversion of visitors to customers (e.g., is it based on revenue or registrations?).
🌟Discover how key users interact with your product and what their needs are.
For example, if you're designing a social network for business executives, do they typically check in during the day or night?
Before interviewing users to understand what they need from a new feature on your product, walk a mile in their shoes by doing a post-mortem on an existing product. How would they experience the pain?
Check: https://bit.ly/3CIdOGx
🌠Use systems thinking to iterate and improve user experiences continuously.
For example, if an engineer designs a product based on market research data (e.g., A/B testing) but doesn't account for technical constraints (e.g., the number of servers that can handle requests), it might cause an experience to break or perform unexpectedly.
Summary:
Think holistically about how your product fits into the broader world and understands its place in an ecosystem at large.
Ask yourself: what does success look like? How will you measure it?
For example, when thinking about a new feature on a digital service, you might consider how it affects their personal and professional lives.
Overall, there is no one correct answer in systems thinking.
The product world is complicated and messy—but if we can be open-minded, we can start to understand how all the pieces fit together.
Related reading: https://bit.ly/3GDicJg
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