Nature - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 11

ivists and entrepreneurs who can see the system as the source of its own problems, and restruc-
ture it. Progress depends upon people who know there must be a better way.
These change agents are often found in and around information systems, because our tools of
communication are powerful levers of change. As the legendary systems thinker and environ-
mentalist Donella Meadows explains:
Some interconnections in systems are actual physical flows, such as the water in the tree's trunk or the
students progressing through a university. Many interconnections are flows of information - signals that
go to decision points or action points within a system…information holds systems together. i x
In her topic, Thinking in Systems, Donella makes it clear most problems in systems are due to
biased, late, or missing information; and adding or restoring information is often the most
powerful intervention. Simply changing the length of a delay may radically change behavior,
causing overshoots, oscillations, and even total collapse of the system. Feedback loops are cent-
ral to the design of information in systems.
Donella tells a great story about electric meters in Dutch houses. In the 1970s, a subdivision was
built near Amsterdam with houses that were identical except for the position of the electric
meter. Some were in the basement while others were in the front hall. Over time, the houses
with visible meters (in the front hall) consumed thirty percent less electricity. She describes this
as “an example of a high leverage point in the information structure of the system. It's not a
parameter adjustment, not a strengthening or weakening of an existing feedback loop. It's a new
loop delivering feedback to a place where it wasn't going before.” x
This is where information architects can make a difference. Our user research and stakeholder
interviews illuminate the openings where what's desirable meets what's possible. And we're
already in the business of mapping interconnections and information flows. If we take the time
to understand the nature of information in systems, we can shape profound change with the
right mix of links, loops, and levers.
Of course, it's not enough for us to understand. We must also convince our clients and col-
leagues. As information architects, we've learned to reveal the infrastructure behind the inter-
face. We're experts at using boxes and arrows to make the invisible visible. This need for visual-
ization is something we share with systems thinkers like Donella, who explains:
There is a problem in discussing systems only with words. Words and sentences must, by necessity, come
only one at a time in linear, logical order. Systems happen all at once. They are connected not just in one
direction, but in many directions simultaneously. To discuss them properly, it is necessary to use a lan-
guage that shares some of the same properties as the phenomena under discussion. xi
Both practices rely upon a visual language for analysis and design. While information architects
are known for our sitemaps and wireframes, the tool of choice for systems thinkers is the stock-
and-flow diagram.