Hello Reader,

Last month I wrote about the mess beneath the clean line: the gaps between teams that nobody designed, and nobody is fixing. Since then I've been thinking about what happens in those gaps when nobody is designing them.

Something always fills the space.

Walk across any park, and you'll see them: the muddy tracks cutting the corner where the paved path takes the long way round. Planners call them desire lines. Nobody designed them. Thousands of people did, one step at a time, because the official route didn't match where they were actually going.

Services have them too. The spreadsheet one person maintains, and everyone depends on. The phone number staff give out because the website sends people round in circles. The Post-it on the monitor with the three things you have to click in the right order. The "just email Mary" that's on nobody's process map but is how half the work actually gets done.

We tend to treat these as a mess to tidy up. I think they're the most honest research an organisation has. A workaround is a person telling you, very precisely, where the designed service failed them. They've done the research. They've built the prototype. Nobody asked them to.

Here's where I think we're at as a discipline. We're very good at designing the paved paths: the screens, the journeys, the prototypes, the decks. AI is making that part faster and cheaper every month. What it can't do is notice the muddy track across the grass. That still takes someone standing in the service, watching what people actually do, and asking why.

The undesigned parts aren't the edges of the work anymore. More and more, they are the work.

A small test for this week

Find one workaround in a service you're close to. Don't fix it. Just ask three questions:

1. Who built it, and when?
2. What would break if it disappeared tomorrow?
3. Who in leadership knows it exists?

If the answer to the last one is nobody, you've found something worth designing.

Which brings me to something new

From 1 December, the podcast changes. Instead of a guest a week, each month takes on one theme, and you bring the questions. December's theme is Nobody Designed This.

Post the situation you're stuck in. Tap Same here on the ones you recognise. The most shared get answered on air, one episode every Tuesday, and I'll be ringing practitioners I know and respect to help answer them. Everything else gets a written answer, so nothing disappears. Post anonymously if you'd rather. Most people will.

One favour.

This is the first rough version and it has rough edges. Have a poke around and hit reply with anything confusing, broken, or missing.

You'll shape the platform as much as the episodes.

Why the change? Well, podcasting has changed. There are so many talking head podcasts out there that it must be difficult to select episodes to listen to. Will we still do interviews? You betcha. But not all of the time, and only if it's someone I feel is really special.

Gerry

P.S. Not sure what to ask? Start with your muddy track. What's the workaround in your service that nobody owns, but everybody depends on?

Gerry Scullion​ Founder & Designer ​Connect with me on LinkedIn​ ​ We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Come add your name, learn, listen, connect and network - it's free!→ thisishcd.com/directory​

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