I describe my career path “zigzagging”. I’ve had the pleasure of working across an unusually wide range of design disciplines — visual, communication, UX, industrial, environmental, service, instructional.
One of my favorite zags was through strategic design, when I began solving “undiagnosed design problems”.
Many problems that appeared to be intractable political, management or process problems became way, way more tractable when approached as design problems.
Any problem that involves people participating in systems, where the success of that system depends on people choosing to participate in particular ways is a design problem.
But doesn’t that mean most social and organizational problems are design problems? Yes!