Image: A rudimentary model of a simple Credit Card operation. There is more, much more if only you go beyond the obvious. Further this same operation that seems to be so stable now can be improved and made better from a whole range of attributes which would be the purpose of any design assignment.
However there is more to it than meets the eye and the last word on Credit Cards is not yet written since it exists in a reflexive space (as defined by George Soros) that is in a space filled with thinking and acting individuals, each with their own motives and needs and responsibilities. A map of these entities and relationships will show us what we now know about the whole system at a glance while each of these entities, features and attributes as well as the relationships as well as dependencies can be changed by thought and imagination to provide a new state, better or worse, than the condition that was obtained before the change was tried out. This is systems design and through this we can try and get some insights into how to understand systems using these models as well as how we can build our ability to make sense of the world through mapping and modelling tools at our disposal.
Systems Design has been offered at NID for many years now and each time we have a new group of students grappling with the basics of the field. But you should spend some time in the Library and see the numerous documents that have been placed there by our former students who have done systems design related projects in Furniture Design and Product Design disciplines over the years. These documents are useful resources for the study of systems design and many of them deal with complex issues and situations that have required the designers to look well beyond technology and markets at social and political realities of India in arriving at an understanding of what needs to be done and then developing concepts that could offer some degree of meaningful resolution of the complexity that was encountered in the research.
I look forward to see the mental models that are collectively held by the group and the systems model that you prepare in mutual consultation would be a fairly close representation of the models that you collectively hold in your mind. The external representation may be schematic and abstract while the mental models would be informed by many annectdotes and real experiences of the use of the Credit Cards in the field as well as those related experiences as heard from friends and associates in the form of stories and descriptions of many field situations that are outside of ones personal experience. I look forward to seeing your model in a day or two and to take this learning forward to the situations that you wish to study and resolve as part of your current assignment in Product Design at NID.
