Prospecting a systemic design space for pandemic responses

Abstract

Design literature describes an expansion of design activity towards systemic relations, which requires dealing with controversies among multiple actors. These controversies have a sociotechnical nature, given the inextricably of social and technical relations. This research looks at the sociotechnical controversy in COVID-19 design responses to assess the extent of said expansion. A controversial design space mapping was conducted based on a set of web pages found in the international design community which describes design responses for the pandemic. Considered as a representation of a socially-produced design space, the mapping reveals that systemic relations are still overlooked by the design community. A possible explanation for that is the lack of depth in problematizing the COVID-19 pandemic. The research offers, thus, prospective recommendations for a systemic design space for pandemics and other systemic crisis.