Dead Ends: Patterns
Dead Ends: Season 1, Episode 2
In our second episode of Dead Ends, we talk patterns, if and then logics, design systems and cheese.
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Table of the Animal Kingdom (Regnum Animale) from Carolus Linnaeus's first edition (1735) of Systema Naturae (courtesy of Wikipedia)
Transcript
Our transcript is auto generated so may contain some fruity spellings, please forgive us!
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:27:02
Lou
Welcome to Dead Ends, a monthly podcast about how the world around us is designed and how it got that way. Mostly ending in isn't that interesting? I'm one half of your hosts. Me down, and I'm the other half. Sarah Drummond, this is the Dead End podcast from the School of Good Services, and we hope you enjoy the show.
00:00:27:04 - 00:00:54:16
Lou
So spring has, properly sprung and we have just got back from Paris. It was great. It was lovely. Lots of croissants. So many questions. And also so much wandering around and looking at architecture. I think that's something you can't avoid in Paris, because it is beautiful. And of course, to designers on holiday, we spend a lot of our time talking about why things look the way that they do and why they work in the way that they work.
00:00:54:16 - 00:01:18:06
Lou
And that gets us talking about patterns quite frequently. And so we decided that we wanted to do our second episode about patterns and really specifically why they are important in design, because I think we talk about them a lot, but we maybe overlook that sometimes, what happens when we don't spot patterns and a little bit about what goes wrong sometimes with patterns as well.
00:01:18:06 - 00:01:39:19
Lou
And it happens to be Sarah's special subject. So I'm going to hand over to you to talk about your special interest of patterns. I feel like you've set me up for, like, a mastermind style chair. It's if I'm going to get asked I do is that I don't overthink it. I don't think I've ever seen mastermind. Okay, so I wasn't the mastermind to that might have been countdown.
00:01:39:21 - 00:02:02:15
Sarah
And then for my special topic pattern, that instance. Okay. So I'm really interested in patterns and actually this idea of people who are more predisposed towards what we call pattern seeking. And I wanted to start today with just a little shout out to a book called Pattern Seekers by Simon Baron Cohen. And his book is brilliant. It goes into kind of different ways in which people see patterns.
00:02:02:15 - 00:02:18:24
Unknown
And I'm going to talk a little bit about that, at the start of this podcast today, and he opens a book with a story about a boy called Jonah who thought to be a bit different by his mother. So she becomes a bit concerned about, you know, seeing things like obsessive behavior, a kind of constant quest for knowledge.
00:02:18:24 - 00:02:39:15
Sarah
I mean, I would be I mean, I think a constant quest for knowledge is good. But anyway, she was concerned why he didn't socialize much with other children and his constant use of the word y for everything that they see. And when he was interviewed by a doctor at the pediatric clinic, he's asked what he did yesterday, and he sort of goes on to say that yesterday I sorted all the leaves into five different piles.
00:02:39:17 - 00:03:04:09
Sarah
These ones all have a stock. These ones all have a single blade. These ones all have a smooth edge. These ones all have an elliptical shape and these ones have a main vein with all the other veins coming off it. But today I realized there's a six ways these can differ. These ones all have leaves that are opposite each other along the stem, and the doctor asked him why he wanted to find out all the different ways to sort the leaves, and he answered simply, so I know all the patterns.
00:03:04:09 - 00:03:26:18
Lou
I mean, I wouldn't. This kid sounds awesome, by the way. Yeah, I want to be friends with Jonah. We would have been hanging out in that bush sorting all the leaves 100%. I don't doubt it. and anyway, the advisor was amazed. She'd never come across a child who was so logical, so different, so self-contained, and explained his mother that some of the late tacos are more spatial and sometimes more musical, sometimes more mathematical.
00:03:26:20 - 00:03:46:03
Sarah
And what they had in common is that they all love patterns. And so children like Jonah loved rules because rules were themselves patterns. And I really loved reading this book because it really opened my eyes up to this idea that we're actually we're all predisposed. I mean, some of us might be really good at pattern seeking, but we're all predisposed to seek patterns in, in our lives.
00:03:46:09 - 00:04:06:04
Sarah
We call this the systematizing mechanism. So Simon Baron-Cohen coined this term, and it's where the kind of engine, the brain seeks out patterns. And this engine is what seeks out what we call if and then patterns, and helps our brain to define the minimum definition of a system so we can understand it, navigate it, and change it if we can.
00:04:06:04 - 00:04:23:20
Sarah
So we're all kind of predisposed to seeking these patterns in life or kind of defining the rules. And the children that we hear about at the start of the book. Pattern sequence, the child, Jonah, I told you the story about, oh, they seem to care about was a search for truth, which for them was simply a word for kind of consistent patterns.
00:04:23:22 - 00:04:42:20
Sarah
And I kind of got thinking about myself a little bit and this kind of, a relentless quest for knowledge. I think, you know, me and my smartphone just kind of constantly going after stuff. and, you know, I think I'm quite predisposed to finding patterns, but also, I guess I was taught this at school was kind of focused on on being a designer.
00:04:42:20 - 00:05:07:19
Sarah
We were always asked to like 3D model and use computer aids, like technology to try and like break things apart and understand the system about the rules. So I guess my systematizing mechanism has been exercised as a designer for like a really long time. So some of us kind of exercise that muscle of systematizing. Some of us are born more predisposed to it, like Jonah and sometimes two together.
00:05:07:19 - 00:05:31:24
Sarah
And you get relentless quests, for knowledge. But all humans have this kind of specific engine in the brain. I love the idea of a systematizing mechanism being a thing that helps us to understand the world, that it's almost like this machine that's going in the back of your brain, just constantly trying to kind of make meaning out of what is essentially just an onslaught of chaos around us.
00:05:31:24 - 00:05:54:24
Sarah
Really, that, yeah, it's brilliant. And actually, Cohen's systematizing mechanism was based on a logic model developed by someone called George Boole and his logic model kind of followed this pattern of if and then. So Boole's like kind of super interesting, right? He was largely a self-taught mathematician. In fact, he opened his own school in Doncaster when he was 19 and became the first.
00:05:54:24 - 00:06:15:24
Sarah
I know you're looking at me like, wow, he's 19. He opened his first school wow, and became the first appointed professor of mathematics at Queens College in Cork, and he inspired movements in modern electronics, development of the modern computer and work that underpins a lot of actually our kind of digital revolutions. over the 21st, and 20th to 21st century.
00:06:16:01 - 00:06:39:16
Sarah
And his analytical logic set in books like The Laws of Thought from around 1850s, captured this essence of systematizing. And just coming back to the idea of his logic model, we can break it down to if and then and if and then is a great underpinning logic for thinking about observing and testing hypotheses in patterns. So to kind of like think about some funny examples.
00:06:39:16 - 00:06:55:23
Sarah
I don't know if anyone's seen the video. where it's, during lockdown, where we get so used to being out in urban and public environments, like squeezing hand sanitizer. so you go, you know, you pass a lamp post, you'd be like, oh, squeeze a bit. Hand sanitizer, you know, rub it on my hands, keep my hands clean.
00:06:56:00 - 00:07:18:12
Sarah
Well, a lot of the kids that were born at this time started watching the parents do this and going, right, there is a kind of block based object on a lamppost or in a toilet stall or wherever you would see these hand sanitizers. And this is video where this kid goes up to his box, it's on a lamppost, and it's not a hand sanitizer, but literally starts trying to squeeze the bottom of it.
00:07:18:12 - 00:07:46:02
Sarah
And what we're seeing is a kid basically using that Boole's logic of if and then if there's a box in the outdoors, there's going to be some gel that comes out. It's nuts, right? Yeah. I mean, we're talking about basically a thunderman mental way of understanding the world, right? And our way of learning of if I do this thing, then this thing happens and your story just makes me think that, you know, that's a really helpful instinct most of the time.
00:07:46:02 - 00:08:05:19
Sarah
But when things change so rapidly and, you know, as a two year old, our entire lifespan has been spent in a world where we get, you know, alcohol, hand gel out of lamp and then suddenly we don't. That's actually just not very helpful. Yeah, it's so weird. But so you can you can will post a link of the the kid Growing up six example post.
00:08:05:19 - 00:08:19:08
Sarah
It's quite funny. but we use anyway we use this logic right? All the time in our everyday life. You know, if you think about our idea of understanding how long we might want to boil an egg for, right? You know, if I take an egg and boil it for eight minutes, then the yolk will be hard and yellow.
00:08:19:08 - 00:08:53:13
Sarah
So it's a kind of Boole's logic. If I take an egg and I boil it for four minutes, then the yolk will be soft and orange. So these kind of patterns and if and then logics become really useful, to us. And we see this in things like folktales, you know, things around like weather prediction. Right? I mean, my family has so many sayings about weather, that I almost can't remember most of them, but, you know, the classic ones, things like Red Sky at night, Shepherd's Delight, you know, that basically, if it's a red sky in the evening, then it will be a nice day the next day.
00:08:53:15 - 00:09:13:01
Lou
my granny used to say something about cows lying down, and if the cows were lying down, then it would rain the next day. That was a big thing. never cast cloud till May is out. I mean, like, the list goes on, but the kind of like bull's logic, right? Yeah. These sort of observations. I mean, if we get a bit more scientific about let's talk about weather stuff, right?
00:09:13:01 - 00:09:33:21
Sarah
If the cumulonimbus clouds in the sky and there is thunder, then there will be severe weather on its way. We kind of know this, right? It's a logic. So these kinds of, I guess, like predictions, these kinds of logics are helpful in our life. Right? And, you know, one around the weather. One. So the great early warning kind of systems for bad weather.
00:09:33:21 - 00:09:51:09
Sarah
And they were developed through observation by kind of spotting patterns. Right. Saying if this happens and this happens and this is going to be the outcome of it, and I just find, you know, you can start to look around the world and actually look for the people who created some of these systems and actually like a couple of small a couple of years ago now.
00:09:51:09 - 00:10:08:09
Sarah
But I was passing one of those, you know, those blue disks that you like, get on, like famous buildings and says, like, I don't know, like David Bowie recorded his album here. The Rolling Stones one smoked a cigaret over here, whatever it is. You know, Charles Dickens lived here. Well, there was one that had, Namer of Clouds.
00:10:08:10 - 00:10:34:06
Sarah
Luke Howarf lived here, and I was like, whoo hoo! Someone named the clouds. Someone actually sat and systematized and found patterns in clouds. And you kind of take for granted that these things have always been done right. So like Howard, like, super interesting. Born in 1772, he'd become inspired by nature from a super young age and developed his childhood passion to become an amateur meteorologist.
00:10:34:08 - 00:10:58:09
Sarah
Can we just take a step back? What's with all these, like, high performing children? Well, I mean, there's definitely a pattern there, right? But in books. Oh, dear. Okay, so back to my story. I even built a laboratory, his home field of instruments, to analyze the weather. And even though his day job was kind of manufacturing chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry, Howard, scientific work changed the way we understand the climate around us.
00:10:58:11 - 00:11:29:22
Sarah
So just kind of taking us back a little bit. Before the 19th century, many meteorologists thought of each cloud as unique, unclassified, viable, and in a kind of state of temporary existence. And instead of strict descriptions, clouds recorded by color or individual interpretation. And this all changed when Howard presented his essay on the Modification of Clouds to the Asking Society in 1802, and the impact of his work was totally immense, elevating this kind of idea of clouds as natural phenomenon to the realms of worthy scientific investigation.
00:11:29:22 - 00:11:49:15
Sarah
So what he'd done is basically spot patterns in the clouds. What they were doing, the shapes they were taking, how long they took them for. And he gave us the kinds of cloud names that we know, like cumulus Latin for heat, stratos, Latin for layer, and cirrus, Latin for curl of hair, which are world words we still kind of use today.
00:11:49:17 - 00:12:07:17
Sarah
But actually what was really beautiful. We'll post again a link to this is he. He actually captured these sort of clouds through really beautiful watercolor sketches, which I think are beautiful. You want to have on the wall. But he was scrutinizing the shapes, the patterns of them. So Luke Howard was a pattern seeker. He did it with clouds.
00:12:07:19 - 00:12:26:07
Sarah
So you get this picture now, right? This origins of if and then from Boole's logic analogy is what Cohen refers to as systematizing mechanism. Baron Cohen put together these four steps of how we systematize. and I'm going to kind of just lift from his work. Can I just read you a little bit, from his way of thinking about the steps of systematizing.
00:12:26:07 - 00:12:43:10
Sarah
So step one is observing and asking a question. So when we humans look at the world of objects or events, we start by asking a why question why did the candle blow out? Or a how question, how do birds fly? Or what question? What could I do with that piece of wood? Or one question when is it dangerous to go out to sea or away?
00:12:43:10 - 00:13:04:14
Sarah
Or question where is the best place to plant a tomato seed? Indeed, curiosity turns out to be an important indicator of systematizing right? So asking these kinds of questions. Step two is answering the question by hypothesizing an if and then pattern. So we look for what we might have made. One thing the input change to become different, which would be the output.
00:13:04:16 - 00:13:23:18
Sarah
We search the immediate vicinity in case the cause of the change is visible, or we speculate about a cause that must be there, but maybe invisible. Step three is testing the if and then pattern in a loop, and we do this by repeat experimenting. So making repeat observations to see if it always holds true. So Luke Howard would have been looking at the clouds.
00:13:23:18 - 00:13:39:23
Sarah
That type of cloud in the sort of climate might mean rainfall. Right. So you're starting to keep looking at that. So he looked at a lot of clouds basically, and a lot of weather data. And the best systematize is go round this little loop dozens or even hundreds of times to be super sure that the if and then pattern holds true.
00:13:40:00 - 00:13:55:17
Sarah
And if the pattern is confirmed and is new, we have an invention. And finally, in step four, when we find such a pattern, we modify the pattern and test a modified pattern. In a loop, we modify the initial if and then pattern by taking it apart and varying either the if and or the end to see what happens to the.
00:13:55:17 - 00:14:15:07
Sarah
Then we then test a modified pattern by looping round and round to check whether the pattern is seen every time, if the pattern is consistently seen, and if it is new, we have another invention, and we can then decide whether to keep the modified pattern, either because it improves the efficiency of the system and or because it is resulted in something altogether new and useful.
00:14:15:09 - 00:14:37:05
Sarah
So that is the systematizing mechanism. Sounds like design, right? Testing and learning. I mean, to me it sounds like someone who's found a pattern of finding patterns. Okay. Doesn't matter. Unbelievably matter. And I absolutely love and I personally love the idea, but everyone was just wandering around before this in the 1700s just looking at clouds going yeah.
00:14:37:07 - 00:14:56:13
Sarah
Yeah that looks nice. And with no questions about what that actually meant. Bacon heads for thinking. But but the thing is I'm sure they did have ideas. It's just that those things were probably quite localized. Right. So, you know, we were all just talking about Red Sky at night. Shepherd's delight. No one came up with a complete system of understanding.
00:14:56:13 - 00:15:14:12
Sarah
That whole thing, which, you know, is more than the sum of its parts, really interestingly, because that's what that's what I think we're saying here. Right? Everyone is a pattern seeker, a red skirt. Night Shepherd's delight is people spotting patterns. Some people took it. These kind of child geniuses took it a little bit further. And when actually we're going to really get some data here, we're going to keep testing this.
00:15:14:12 - 00:15:33:09
Sarah
And then I'm going to create a system and present it. And we see it in so many different things that we've come to understand and how the world works around us. So why are we geeking out about patterns anyway? What's that got to do with design? Well, one like I think it's quite it's a, it's a core part of being a designer, testing and learning by the systematizing mechanism.
00:15:33:11 - 00:15:54:18
Sarah
But I think one of the things that you and I talk a lot about when we help organizations is that they don't really realize that they're running services, and then when they start to try and do it, quite a lot of them find it really difficult to break that system down into kind of different component parts. It feels almost really difficult to be reductionist about it.
00:15:54:21 - 00:16:24:16
Sarah
And when we don't see services and we can't kind of systematically think about them, meeting user needs and getting users towards outcomes, this is a classic reason for why services, one of the reasons why services can be bad. There's many reasons, but maybe why they fail, why they don't work for people. And I really like kind of try to get organizations to think about their services as systems and be able to break them down into different pieces and think about them as potentially like patterns so we can approve them.
00:16:24:18 - 00:16:46:14
Sarah
And I think systematizing our services is the first step in helping us improve our services, starting with, as Cohen said, observation and classification of what we deliver and what we then kind of observe our services being made of, and then at least we've got some kind of way, like kind of Lego bricks, of being able to discuss our services rather than these amorphous, invisible things.
00:16:46:14 - 00:17:07:18
Lou
Taking that kind of systematizing logic to services. I think it's really helpful attribute in service design, and it really makes me think of all of the designers that I know who have collections of things as well. I'm sure every designer has an interesting collection of stuff. I have a collection of the inside of envelopes. you've never shown me that.
00:17:07:20 - 00:17:30:19
Sarah
Are you hiding that from me? Oh, it's it's in it. It's in a box. You don't know where it is. It's a collection of the inside of envelopes. And basically, they're patterns. And I love them. They're beautiful. If you've ever looked in the inside of an envelope, the pattern that's on the inside that's supposed to block you from reading the contents of the letter is just the most beautiful thing.
00:17:30:20 - 00:17:50:14
Unknown
And what's interesting about those patterns is that they have lots of similarities with other patterns that are supposed to baffle other things. Right? So it's very similar to camouflage. It's very similar to the types of patterns that you see in storm defenses. Anyway, I have a collection of patterns, and I'm sure that many of the listeners to this podcast also have a collection of patterns.
00:17:50:16 - 00:18:07:22
Sarah
You collect manhole pictures as well, don't you? I also do, yes. What are the well, let's well the collections. Have you got that? I don't know about what? okay. Let's move on.
00:18:07:24 - 00:18:28:06
Lou
Hi, it's Lou here. Time for a show ad break. When we're not podcasting, we run the School of Good Services that helps people and organizations learn how to design and deliver great services. We teach courses on service design, how to get by and for your work, and what makes a good and a bad service. So if you want to know more about that and to sign up to one of our courses, check out Good Services.
00:18:28:08 - 00:18:53:21
Lou
Now back to the podcast. So that's really interesting. And it really makes me think of just how many discoveries there have been, because someone spotted a pattern first and foremost, and then tried to work out why that pattern existed. You know, everything from clouds to string theory to chaos theory and everything in between. And there's a really wonderful quote by Albert Einstein that this reminds me of.
00:18:53:21 - 00:19:13:14
Lou
And he said, the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility, the fact that it's comprehensible is a miracle. And I just think that's such a wonderful way of seeing things that actually the most amazing thing about the universe is that there are patterns to it, and that sometimes we don't even know why those patterns exist. So there's something about spotting patterns.
00:19:13:14 - 00:19:35:07
Lou
Before we even know why that pattern is happening. That's really important to the process of discovery and also design. Yeah. And I think what we've done then is designers in the kind of growing we keep coming back to saying this, the growing digital service era, I mean, the digital service area has been going for like 30 years now, but it's still probably quite a nascent, immature practice in a sense.
00:19:35:07 - 00:20:00:19
Sarah
It's still finding its way maturing. but one of the things that we started to do is designers is to platform and to lab in order to use these patterns in a way that is helpful to us. And that's where we see things that some people call pattern libraries. We see design systems that contain these patterns, these patterns being things like, fonts and typography, ways of laying out stuff for users, different ways in which we ask questions.
00:20:00:19 - 00:20:22:23
Sarah
Sometimes pattern libraries and design systems are telling us that more principle, even higher level of how we should design something. but I really interested actually, in this idea of design systems, because they're not just something that is new that happened in this kind of last 25, 30 years of the digital service era. But there's something that's been happening for hundreds of years.
00:20:22:23 - 00:20:52:15
Sarah
And one of my favorite examples comes from like 300 years ago from Sky called Carr Linnaeus, who was born in 1707. He was a bit of an everything. He was a Swedish, both zoologist, taxonomist and physician, who basically invented the modern system of naming organisms. He's known as the father of modern taxonomy, and through deep observation, he basically created a system in which to mechanize and categorize and make sense of the world, a set of rules or patterns when it comes to organisms.
00:20:52:17 - 00:21:13:12
Sarah
So Linnaeus was the first scientist to develop a hierarchical naming structure that conveyed information both about what the species was like, its name, and also its closest relatives, and the ability of the Linnaean system to convey complex relationships to scientists throughout the world is why it's been so widely adopted. So it's so clear in the way that explain stuff.
00:21:13:14 - 00:21:38:22
Sarah
So Linnaeus was basically like this I don't know, I don't want to use were crazy, but like in Tent Pattern Psycho, this was first encapsulated his work in the book, system naturae. Would you seen a tree? Tree? I mean, nature in a tree. Plural of nature. Anyway, it was published in 1735. Is one of the major works of Carl Linnaeus, and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy.
00:21:38:22 - 00:21:59:17
Sarah
And he established three kingdoms the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, and this classification was based on five levels kingdoms, class, order, genus and species. What's really cool is the first version. The publication date in 1735 was 12 pages long. Right? So you had these kind of PDM of design system of how we see the world and organize organisms in it.
00:21:59:19 - 00:22:40:05
Sarah
But by the 10th edition, he'd included 4400 species of animals and 7700 species of plants. And what a lot of people don't really think about is actually, Linnean created a community of people who were giving him information from things that they were spotting so that he could include this input into his taxonomy of species and kingdoms. So he was a very early design system creator and these kind of abilities to systematize the world became really important, I guess, at the dawn of industrialization, again, related to design on how we scale up the production of things, and we needed patterns in which to to do that.
00:22:40:05 - 00:23:01:04
Sarah
And another person, it's kind of interesting to look at fruit for lots of different reasons. It's just like Wedgwood, who some of you may recognize the kind of neoclassical wares of the Wedgwood brand. It was quite floral, quite neoclassical. it was around during the 18th century when there was a huge surge and a want for kind of neoclassical architecture.
00:23:01:06 - 00:23:30:03
Sarah
Wedgwood ceramics became the kind of must have objects. And what which we did was basically take what could be described as a kind of cottage industry of individual artisans and makers who were creating their own wares, you know, designing it, how they wanted it, creating the shapes themselves to create these design systems of patterns for artisans to join a manufacturing line, a kind of production line, and create consistent and similarly shaped objects.
00:23:30:03 - 00:23:58:23
Sarah
And he also brought in a division of labor. Right. So some people were doing the shape, some people were doing the painting, some people were doing the patterns. but there are books from this area from the 1700s where they are pattern libraries of Wedgwood designs. And I think that's just it's just really interesting, right, that this was at the kind of dawn of the industrial era that we needed to use patterns to scale up production and what's actually really interesting, I mean, not everyone likes Wedgwood, right?
00:23:58:23 - 00:24:22:05
Sarah
And people like John Ruskin Talks waxed lyrically about the fact that taking away the skill from our sons was a really bad thing and taking away craft, and we could get really into that later on. I'll leave a link, in the podcast links to really interesting paper on Wedgwood. But what I really thought was interesting is that he didn't just revolutionize the way in which we produce stuff by creating kind of pattern books for making.
00:24:22:07 - 00:24:47:20
Sarah
He also revolutionized other things, like how we sell the wares. he was credited as the inventor of modern marketing, specifically direct mail. Money back guarantees the traveling salesman who would carry pattern boxes for display for people to then kind of almost like buy it at the door. He did things like buy one, get one free. So he was creating these almost kind of sales patterns as well, that were being invented by him at the time.
00:24:47:20 - 00:25:13:20
Lou
So super interesting guy. super interesting work, but basically scale production by using patterns. it's really interesting. And one thing it's really fascinating about both those examples of Wedgwood and Linnaeus is that it seems like there was a kind of 200 year period of where everyone was just really obsessed with patterns, and hearing you put it in the context of the Industrial Revolution, I think is a really interesting way of looking at this.
00:25:13:20 - 00:25:33:13
Sarah
Right? Because we have to understand the world in order to, you know, create lots and lots of pots. You know, we have to systematize these things. We have to, you know, understand the world in order to be able to engage with it more deeply. So, yeah, there's oh, gosh, that's a huge topic to go into, isn't it?
00:25:33:13 - 00:26:01:06
Sarah
The industrial revolution. I won't derail us, but I think is a really interesting, pattern, in, why we were obsessed with patterns at that moment in time. So you worked on one of the biggest design systems, I guess that's been created in the last ten years, and it's used by lots of different people, not just in one country, but by lots of countries around the world who or who have been at least inspired by that design system and created it.
00:26:01:08 - 00:26:29:11
Lou
do you want to tell us a bit about it? Yeah. So the government is like, well, I should say the UK government design system is a fantastic example of. Yeah, one of those scaled design systems that has helped to not only make sure that things are more consistent, in the same way that Wedgwood patents made sure that his work was more consistent, but also to scale up, the production basically of better government services.
00:26:29:13 - 00:26:48:12
Lou
And it really came about because, we wanted a way of documenting basically the design decisions that were being made by people who were working on the UK. and when up the UK was quite a small team. That was really just a way of making sure that when new people joined the team that they understood why decisions had been made.
00:26:48:14 - 00:27:21:04
Lou
But it became really critical actually to the expansion of the UK, when more designers started to work on that service and we had to do more work more quickly. it became really, really important, you know, patterns in one place help us to do lots of different things. And they helped us to make some really big strategic brand decisions like the color and the font, and the, the look and feel of gov, the UK as the, the central place for government services.
00:27:21:06 - 00:27:43:11
Lou
And it also helped us to reuse preexisting recognizable patterns. Right. So I think it's really worth remembering that the font on Gov.uk, of course, is called New Transport. It's a recap of a font that was designed by Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinnear in the 1960s for motorway signage. So it's an existing pattern that we're very familiar with that we recognize with public services.
00:27:43:13 - 00:28:09:16
Lou
also the colors on Gov.uk are based on public infrastructure, so that partly based on the motorway signage system, but also things like the red of, you know, red post boxes and busses and things like that. So the graphic design of Gov.uk, which, you know, to a large extent was the brainchild of Mark Carroll, brilliant designer who came up with a lot of these really early systems of how Gov.uk was designed.
00:28:09:18 - 00:28:46:00
Lou
are really there to basically kind of create a familiarity with something that you would already be familiar with as a, as a design system. But where the gov, the UK design system really ran into some rocky waters was when we needed to start scaling it to incorporate all of the services that were coming onto gov, the UK, and it was at the point where the cross-government design community got to probably about 4 or 500 designers that really the design system had to to change quite dramatically in the way that it was run.
00:28:46:02 - 00:29:28:21
Lou
and we had to have some really serious conversations, actually, about how do we make sure that the patterns that we're using are actually representative of the true diversity of all of those different services, everything from passports to financial services that are coming on tick up the UK. And I remember this really. yeah. Important moment actually, in that conversation where, a service team came to us, and said, you know, will we have an internal service that's for members of staff, and it's quite complicated, and it involves lots of different activities that need to be done all kind of asynchronously whilst they're on the phone to someone, who's asking them a question.
00:29:28:23 - 00:29:53:05
Lou
And at the time we had this pattern called one thing per page, which, is a, the invention, I think, of Tim Paul. Most of the, the design system kind of somehow, originate, in his brain. But this particular pattern, one thing per page is a is a fantastic way of thinking about basically breaking down complex questions into one thing per page.
00:29:53:05 - 00:30:22:18
Lou
So it's a great pattern, but it didn't work for internal members of staff because of course, they're doing loads of different things all at the same time. So we had to think about actually, how do we create a pattern for that. And the answer was we don't because we are not the experts in that thing. And so suddenly the authors of all of the patterns on the government design system had to change from being us within government digital service to everyone who was working on a service out there across government.
00:30:22:20 - 00:30:51:23
Lou
But that poses some really big questions around how we actually govern and manage patterns, because not only do we have to ask the question of who's contributing to those patterns, and how do we make it easy for them to contribute those patterns. But how do we make sure that actually that team who ultimately are totally, understandably focused on their own service, how do they create a pattern that not just works for them, but also works for all of the other services that might be quite different to their service?
00:30:52:00 - 00:31:14:15
Lou
how do we agree those patterns as a community? How do we make sure that they're right, that we all say yes and no to the right ones for the right reasons? So the governance of patterns is really important to think about. at the beginning of when we are approving a pattern and saying this is the right way of doing things and making sure that's actually accurate and that's based on people's experience and based on user needs.
00:31:14:17 - 00:31:34:03
Lou
But it's also important when it comes to reviewing those patterns and making sure that they stay updated and that, you know, they're not restrictive and that they're doing what they need to do. Because, of course, a pattern has a purpose, right? There's a reason why we categorize things, because we want something to be helpful as a system for other people to be thinking about it.
00:31:34:05 - 00:32:06:23
Lou
And I think there's a really fantastic example of this that I was reading about recently where we didn't review that particular pattern or standard, and it remained in quite an unhelpful way. And it's a story actually about Stilton and the revival of traditional Stilton, and about the person who founded Neal's, Your Dairy Guy called Randolph Hodson, and a cheesemaker called Joe Schneider, who in 2004 tried to remake traditional Stilton out of raw, unpasteurized cows milk.
00:32:07:00 - 00:32:31:05
Lou
But the problem was that in the 1990s, Stilton had been given what's called a PDO, so a protected designation of origin, which stipulated how exactly you should make Stilton. And of course, in that PDO, there's a stipulation that Stilton has to be made with pasteurized milk. Now, obviously, if you want to make a traditional Stilton, you want to use raw, unpasteurized milk.
00:32:31:05 - 00:32:58:12
Lou
But if you want to do that, they were told basically, well, you can, but you can't call it Stilton. because of course, Stilton has to be made with pasteurized milk. So it's a great example of the fact that actually what is supposed to be this really protective standard that says, well, this is what Stilton is, and this was what we want to protect, actually just kind of solidified a moment in time that wasn't actually a representation of traditional Stilton at all.
00:32:58:14 - 00:33:18:08
Lou
and I think it's a great example of actually a pattern or a standard that just never changes and just gets kind of calcified at a moment in time. That's just becomes unhelpful. So what do you do with the cheese and the unpasteurized milk version? Well, they carried on making it and they called it Stilton. And it's an amazing cheese.
00:33:18:10 - 00:33:40:08
Lou
stick Wilton. Yeah. Which I actually think is a much better name for it than Stilton. an interesting fact about Stilton. Stilton is actually named after the place that Stilton was sold, not where it was made. So if you make Stilton in Stilton, you can't call it Stilton. That's not stanno. Makes no sense. But you've used to wear it, so you've sort of introduced a new word to our patterns podcast standards.
00:33:40:08 - 00:33:58:08
Sarah
So what is the difference? Or can you give me like a bit of kind of definition of standards versus patterns or the same or what you do. Well, I mean I'd be really interested to know what other people's thoughts are about this. So, yeah, if you're listening and you have thoughts on what the difference is between a pattern and a standard, I would love to hear it.
00:33:58:10 - 00:34:40:10
Lou
But to me, a standard is something that people have to conform to. It's so to some extent it kind of has to be stable for at least a period of time. A pattern is potentially something that that keeps evolving. It's made by multiple different people. It's reviewed like on an ongoing basis. And so I think this is really interesting tension between, you know, kind of telling people what a particular standard is and that thing having to be stable enough for someone to make the right government service or the right cheese and the listening part of a standard or a pattern, which is making sure that that is representative and real, and that the Stilton is
00:34:40:10 - 00:34:57:14
Lou
the right Stilton and that government service is working well, and that that is a real tension that I think we need to kind of hold in balance when we think about patterns and standards. Yeah. Super interesting. But I mean, I guess like what we're kind of getting to is that patterns are really useful, right? They're really helpful for designing and building services.
00:34:57:19 - 00:35:22:07
Lou
Yeah. I mean, patterns are helpful. Right. And all of the examples we've talked about today show that patterns help us to do everything from create consistent services, reduce our workload, scale our products and services. They help us provide a shared common language for designing services where we might otherwise struggle to communicate about what good and bad looks like.
00:35:22:09 - 00:35:54:24
Lou
they help us to solve problems, ones that are conceptually similar to each other and bring things together and find out new solutions to problems that we've been struggling with for a long time. But sometimes we can come up against them, and sometimes patterns and standards for a variety of reasons become unhelpful to us. And usually it's because we haven't thought about the process of creating those standards and what happens when they are live and out there in the world, and how we help people to use them and how we help them to be changed.
00:35:55:01 - 00:36:18:21
Lou
so patterns become problems when they're not based on user needs. They're not real, you know, like our Stilton that's not made out of, raw milk. or a, you know, service pattern that isn't based on user needs. they become problematic when we don't iterate them. Well, we don't change them. We don't listen to feedback. they're also problematic when they're dictated by people who are not having to use those patterns.
00:36:18:21 - 00:36:40:24
Lou
You know, for a pattern to be really resonant, we have to believe in it. We have to really think that it's the right thing and the right way of solving a problem. Otherwise we're just not going to conform to them. You know, the world is full of products and services that are built, you know, to the standard of the person who thought that it was a good idea, you know, ignoring other things other people have told them to do.
00:36:40:24 - 00:37:04:09
Lou
So we have to believe in patterns to, to conform to them. and I think that's a really huge part of this. So in the work that I've done on patterns and design systems in my career to date, I've sort of started to think about libraries in two senses, one being observational. And we see this in work, like how are we building goals, deceptive patterns?
00:37:04:11 - 00:37:26:21
Sarah
Sarah Golds projects by ES, parser library, where they have a catalog of different patterns and way in which we interact on the internet around data trust, privacy, things like this. And these are people that are observing patterns that are coming up, you know, things even just like, one click shopping is a pattern, right? Like somebody invented that.
00:37:26:21 - 00:37:47:13
Sarah
And it's a pattern that we see used new to new users across the internet. But these are observations, right. There are catalogs of observations. And then on the other side I see patterns inside design systems that are more instructional. So Judas's design system in some way I get that you're saying it's collaborative and stuff, but it's also instructional, saying do it this way because we've tried and tested it.
00:37:47:13 - 00:38:08:17
Sarah
Here's some evidence. And I started thinking much more about this kind of instructional libraries and how and what you've just said is they're quite subjective at times. You know, these patterns are loaded with intent. Sometimes political intent as well, around how we think things should be done based on what we think is the right way in which to do it.
00:38:08:19 - 00:38:40:14
Sarah
And it links to a book that got me really excited and interested in thinking about patterns in design called A Pattern Language, which was a book, published in 1977, by Christopher Alexander and his collaborative partners Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein. And they were at the center for Environmental Structure of Berkeley in California. And they created this book, to basically start documenting and setting an intention of what they want the built environment to look like.
00:38:40:14 - 00:39:04:15
Sarah
So in this book, I'm not suggesting go out and buy it because we've actually got a copy, which is very exciting, but it's huge. It's quite expensive. It's a bit more one of those like, I've got the pattern library book type things, but basically like there's 253 patterns, in it, and it depicts how people might live in a town or a neighborhood, what the size of the pavements should be, how big cycle lanes should be, how much foliage we have in the local environment.
00:39:04:17 - 00:39:22:11
Sarah
And I really like this sort of quote from the book. The Christopher Alexander says is that each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.
00:39:22:13 - 00:39:44:15
Sarah
So their patterns are not totally reductionist to say this. This is the exact way in which you deliver a sidewalk, right? But they're saying this is what would make a good kind of sidewalk. This is a good way to solve, this, this thing and what I really loved when you started digging into their sort of politics and intention around this is when you start to read it, looking for that.
00:39:44:15 - 00:40:19:00
Sarah
And there's the section that they've got is its pattern, section 64 and pools and streams. So they're talking about people's access to water in the outdoor environment. I'm just if you just indulge me for one second reading a little quote from that. So it says this is pools and streams. On the other hand, the highly chlorinated, private walled and fenced off swimming pools, which have become common in rich people suburbs, work directly against the very forces we have described in pools and streams and make the touch of water almost meaningless because it is so private and so empty.
00:40:19:00 - 00:40:41:24
Sarah
Septic. And what they were trying to promote was access to public spaces that people could access also. So there are pattern language and there patterns are loaded with political intent. So patterns are subjective in some way. Right. That's really interesting. And I think what you're showing there is that basically patterns are representative of beliefs that we have about the world, right?
00:40:41:24 - 00:41:06:22
Lou
And systems that we think are true. And it makes me think, actually, about Linnaeus perspective on why he categorized, all of these different plants and animals and part of the reason why he did was because he believed that they weren't going to change. So Linnaeus didn't really believe in evolution or extinction. He thought that, you know, God would never let an animal become extinct.
00:41:06:22 - 00:41:37:02
Lou
So he decided that the right thing to do was to basically categorize all these plants and animals, because they were never going to change. Actually, they're is a, an amazing French scientist who predates Darwin by about 100 years. And there was an interesting Guardian article about him this week, who probably was the first person to come up with the idea of evolution, but even his perspective on categorizing plants and animals and talking about this systematization also had a perspective.
00:41:37:02 - 00:41:56:18
Lou
And, you know, he said things like, for species to change, one must imagine that the Earth is millions of years old, but then would kind of follow it up with things like a but of course, that's a ridiculous speculation. The Bible tells us otherwise. So whenever we create a pattern, we're doing it with our own perspective on the world.
00:41:56:18 - 00:42:20:01
Lou
And sometimes that perspective can kind of cloud our judgment and get us out of seeing the pattern that is in front of us. And as it did with, you know, Linnaeus, and ultimately it did with, George Louis Leclerc. And it makes me think of something that pops into my head every single time someone is showing me a diagram of the way that they see the world.
00:42:20:01 - 00:42:42:04
Lou
And, you know, it's it's basically that hell is other people's diagrams, right? You know, we all see the world differently. And sometimes this need to categorize and create systems can be really oppressive, actually, if you're saying, well, this is my way of seeing the world and your way of seeing the world is, is not relevant or somehow doesn't fit into this categorization or system that I have.
00:42:42:10 - 00:43:11:00
Lou
So some people are upset at patterns. Actually, it really reminds me, actually, of a quote by Paul Shah who who famously railed against, this kind of homogenization, of a kind of global design standard that includes, you know, fonts like Helvetica, which she said, you know, reminds her basically of the Vietnam War. fair enough. but she has this also wonderful quote that she said that beige is the color of indecision.
00:43:11:02 - 00:43:32:19
Sarah/Lou
Oh, do you you're looking at me. Beige is, like, literally the color of my entire house. I mean, well, this is it. I mean, I would thoroughly agree with you, Paula, because my. Yeah, our house is beige because I don't like making constant decisions about textures. It's not just base textures. I'd probably be very upset about our house being a bit too beige.
00:43:32:21 - 00:44:02:13
Sarah
I'm just saying again, has textures. But anyway, a few years ago there was an article that came out in Bloomberg, which said welcome to your bland new World and talked about the coining of this term balance over brands. And it was reflecting on this new kind of smart toothbrush that come out from Colgate, which they described as guiding consumers to brush better and to build healthier habits without sacrificing fun for functionality, and didn't really look like any of Colgate's other toothbrushes.
00:44:02:13 - 00:44:23:07
Sarah
But it did resemble another smart toothbrush on the market that just come out called quip, and quip equally resembled other smart toothbrushes on the market called Goby Burst Boka brush of little dots on top gleam and shine. And for those are those kind of those of listeners out there not really tracking the intricacies of it's like Geist market marketing.
00:44:23:10 - 00:44:44:16
Sarah
Humm. Versus quip was just a kind of another latest corporate skirmish in a wider consumer war of brand versus bland. And we see bland kind of everywhere. Things are starting to feel like they're looking the same. But not only are they looking the same in the color palette, very pastel, these sort of smart toothbrushes, the way in which they're even putting out their business model, feels the same.
00:44:44:16 - 00:45:09:01
Sarah
It's a sort of against the big corporate, even though they're owned by a corporate. So I think Colgate's hum was a bit like, we stick toothbrush into the man. The man being Colgate. And you know, everyone was like, we do one thing and we do it pretty well. Brush your teeth and it's got this sort of these brands have got almost this, not just patterns in their fonts and color palettes, but the way in which they're presenting themselves in the world.
00:45:09:01 - 00:45:46:15
Sarah
And you could take this to anything from, I think, shaving beards to getting your haircut to choosing your clothing. No, to buying a car. We're seeing these patterns, these brands almost being rolled out across not just how things look, but how we buy them, how we interact with them. And it got me back to thinking a bit about the Wedgwood stuff that I mentioned earlier, and this really interesting paper actually, on his work that was written by Robin Holt and Andrew Popp here at the University of Liverpool, when they wanted to actually look beyond the position that individual craft is marginalized during the process of industrialization.
00:45:46:15 - 00:46:12:09
Sarah
So a lot of people, as I mentioned earlier, get super angry Wedgwood for like taking craft away from the artisans, but actually they wanted to kind of look at where there was, I guess, craft within industrialization, of platforming, of tooling. And there was one quote in that paper that really caught my attention that I absolutely loved, which was industrialization persists in British cultural memory is both a triumphant and a traumatic event.
00:46:12:11 - 00:46:35:10
Sarah
And I think in some way we're like seeing this play out again with I mean, I'm going to mention the buzzword of all time at the moment, but new technologies like AI hitting the mainstream, you know, I think there's a feeling amongst loads of creatives and I totally get it, of being stripped of the craft of our workers, designers, creatives, filmmakers, poets, writers, you know, however we want to describe ourselves.
00:46:35:12 - 00:46:58:00
Sarah
But I think that there's also new design patterns to be created. With new platforms comes new ways of presenting interactions in our worlds. There's exciting ways that are less on screen now and more in our environment. You know, we're seeing AI, machine learning that can start to read our physical interactions with cameras and there's all manners of new patterns that need to be created.
00:46:58:02 - 00:47:21:07
Sarah
And I think the real work, though, might be in challenging the kind of dogmatic, invisible patterns, like the business models we see in brands that are being replicated out of the stick it to the man marketing pitch. It's not really just how it looks now. It's also how it's delivered and delivers value back to people and planet. Or the design and intent of those patterns is more intangible work.
00:47:21:07 - 00:47:47:00
Sarah
This time around, our ethics of algorithms, how we collect and use data, what we present to users, our design work. Now, the kind of pattern work we need to start looking at is perhaps more rooted in policy, rules and regulation, dare I say, standards. So thus bringing us back to this idea of patterns and standards. But for good in design, we've got to really start seeing our work in this space.
00:47:47:00 - 00:48:11:04
Sarah
So whilst the removal of craft from our work, and described in that paper is maybe traumatic, there could be a triumphant return here and actually really challenging how we want to see the world designed around us. and I think what you're saying that is that it's really important to spot the patterns that sit around patterns. Right?
00:48:11:04 - 00:48:36:15
Lou
So there's a reason why we've ended up with plans to some extent, and it's because it is cheaper and faster to produce something that is the same as everything else than it is to produce something that is covered in ornamentation and individual craftsmanship. You know, there's a reason why we don't make buildings covered in loads of ornamentation anymore, because it's too damn expensive, right?
00:48:36:21 - 00:48:58:02
Sarah
So there is a meta pattern that's kind of driving these patterns, for want of a better word. And, you know, that's money. And I think there's a real need for us to analyze the the driving forces that sit behind these patterns. Capitalist patterns indeed. Wow. We didn't even write that one down. I just came to me after these patterns.
00:48:58:02 - 00:49:19:23
Lou
But patterns and patterns, do you think do you think this is that ends? I think we might have reached a dead end, but I hope that isn't a dead end for you, dear listener. and I hope that has sent you off into all sorts of interesting intellectual tailspin, and rabbit holes that you can carry on after listening to this podcast.
00:49:19:23 - 00:49:39:02
Sarah
So thanks everyone for listening to our Dead Ends podcast. We got to a great dead end of capitalist patterns. How do we even get there, Lou? well, I mean, about 40 minutes of discussion. Yeah. Okay, so we got there anyway, if you want to keep listening to us getting into dead ends, this is our life. Really talking about stuff and going,
00:49:39:04 - 00:49:58:20
Sarah
Oh, isn't that interesting? It's interesting. Here's a dead end. You can keep following us by signing up to follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Search for Dead ends and you'll find us there. We're also on good services, where you can find information about other courses or writing, and you can find a dead end podcast on there.
00:49:58:22 - 00:50:13:24
Sarah
And if you want to get in touch with us and suggest a topic or even a dead end for us to start with, and we work our way back from it in some way. That's a bit meta, isn't it? you can get in touch with us on hello, good services. with the title Dead Ends. Let us know.
00:50:14:01 - 00:50:36:11
Unknown
So shall we get on with our day and go and find some more catalyst patterns? Let's do it. All right. I'm on the hunt. Bye bye.