Designing for human adaption
Link to full presentation: https://youtu.be/jIfU_zpQeng?si=M7Nx89C6UtEEeIbs
Kashish’s section: 1.27 onwards
Delivered in Cincinnati, OH on May 1, 2025
Why Systems Fail (And Why They Don’t): Designing for Intuitivity, Presence, and Change
Why do some systems become so embedded in our lives that they feel invisible, while others—even those packed with innovation - fade into irrelevance? In my recent talk at DAAPX, I unpacked this question through the lens of design strategy, cognitive science, and systems theory. The talk, titled Why Systems Fail (And Why They Don’t), explored how systems gain or lose traction not by chance, but through the interplay of cultural, emotional, and structural forces. It also addressed how designers must evolve our approach in an era of ambient AI and increasingly invisible interfaces.
Systems Are More Than Interfaces
Designing systems is not the same as designing features. A system is a dynamic ecosystem: a constellation of relationships, behaviors, expectations, and values. Following Donella Meadows’ definition, a system is "an interconnected set of elements coherently organized to achieve a function or purpose." This implies that behavior emerges not from individual parts but from their interaction over time. In other words, optimizing parts of a system in isolation can be ineffective or even harmful unless we understand how those parts shape the whole.
Most failures in system adoption stem from a mismatch between how the system behaves and the mental, cultural, and emotional frameworks of the people it seeks to serve.
Intuitivity Is Structured, Not Serendipitous
The talk identified four key factors that determine how intuitive a system feels to a user:
Past Experiences: Users adapt more easily when the new system echoes something familiar—a workflow, a metaphor, a layout.
Cultural Context: Expectations around formality, responsiveness, and hierarchy differ across cultures and shape what users find acceptable or desirable.
Mental Models: These internal schemas predict how something should work. When design aligns with these models, learning curves flatten.
Pattern Recognition: Humans are constantly looking for structure. If a system leverages recognizable patterns, it enables confidence and trust—two prerequisites for adoption.
Designing for Presence in Ambient Systems
In a world of ambient and ubiquitous computing—from smart homes to AR overlays to intelligent agents—the surface of the system is no longer a screen. Instead, interactions become atmospheric, peripheral, and continuous.
Designing for these systems means designing for presence rather than just usability. Presence is the feeling that a system belongs in the user's context without demanding constant attention. In this paradigm:
Interfaces should recede, not dominate.
Feedback loops should be subtle, contextual, and adaptive.
Control must feel distributed and responsive, rather than centralized.
This reframes usability. Success is not just whether a user can complete a task, but whether the system harmonizes with their environment, rhythms, and moods.
The Case for Deep Intervention
I shared a personal example: my long resistance to learning to ride a bicycle, and how a shift in context—from abstract benefit to lived necessity - transformed my behavior. This anecdote illustrated a key point: the surface behavior (resistance) was only a symptom. Real change required a deeper shift in values and mindsets.
That story mirrors broader systemic change. As Meadows outlines in her theory of leverage points, the most effective interventions happen not at the level of rules or policies, but at the level of goals, paradigms, and cultural narratives. This guided the creation of CoLab, a co-creation platform I founded to reshape access in the startup ecosystem. Rather than retrofitting inclusion into elite spaces, CoLab shifts the system’s structure by offering an alternate route to collaboration, validation, and progress.
A Framework for Designing Systems That Stick
To close the talk, I offered four key design imperatives for building systems that don’t just work—they endure:
Design in Layers: Address surface usability, but also the behavioral patterns, organizational norms, and emotional cues beneath it.
Create Adaptive Feedback: Treat behavior as dynamic. Let systems evolve based on user actions, not punish deviation.
Prioritize Agency: Empower users to shape the system. Ownership drives trust and persistence.
Respect Cultural Patterns: Systems don’t exist in a vacuum. Context defines meaning.
When systems meet people at the level of their lived experience—not just their tasks—they transition from novel to necessary. And in the best cases, from necessary to invisible.
For more on this work or to explore CoLab, visit www.kashishkalra.com or www.wearecolab.org.
