Essential Design Concepts: Ergon

Design as a discipline gets so bound up with particular domains (architecture, software design, product design, industrial design, urban planning, ergonomics, quality management, etc) that fundamental concepts of design can sometimes get obscured.  One of the most fundamental design concepts is ergon, which is a Greek term meaning work or activity.  You probably guessed that the word ergonomics is rooted in this term.  But ergon is not limited to workplaces, as is ergonomics.

An ergon is an activity or function essential to any person or thing.  It is a concept as old as Aristotle, who wrote that just as a knife has an ergon of cutting, so a flute-player or sculptor each have a distinctive ergon.  

Good design always requires first analyzing activities to find the essential ergon, and then designing artifacts (e.g. buildings, software, processes, etc) that don't inhibit or distract from this ergon, but  that get out of the way and enable one's ergon to be done well.  The key concept in ethics since Aristotle, virtue, is defined in his Ethics as "excellence in performing one's ergon".  So, whereas a virtuous, quality knife is one the cuts well (it performs its ergon well), so the virtue of a flute-player or a sculptor is to perform their distinctive ergon well.  The designer is thus in the business of enabling people to flourish by performing well the activities and functions essential to them, and sustainable businesses are built on products based on such designs.

This essential concept is found in all specific design disciplines, not just ergonomics:

Architecture:  If you have ever worked with a good architect, you know that they begin by asking you about your life and the activities that are important in your life.  Le Corbusier, arguably the most influential 20th century architect, wrote that "The house is a machine for living in", from which the title of this blog is derived.  This architectural best practice is an attempt to build around the ergon of a building's residents. 

Software Design:  A best practice in software design is to create use cases and use case diagrams that make explicit the processes which a software application should enable.  Good software designers are thus advocates of users, but this is sometimes misconstrued as asking users what software features they want (or what their requirements are, when requirements are conceived as software features).  Good software designers ask users to forget about software for a couple moments and simply tell them what they do.   This analysis is an attempt to disclose and articulate the essential activities of a user, the ergon of a user, that an application should enable.  On a deeper level, services-oriented architectures (SOA) are an attempt to ensure that the software architecture won't dictate the use case or process, but that the use case will be supported by the software architecture at all levels.

Website Design: A best practice in website design is to observe what users do, not what they say.  Website design can sometimes be reduced to creating attractive web pages.  This is a common diversion of design in all domains towards a concept of aesthetic attractiveness divorced from ergon.  I would argue that a design that enables the user to flourish by performing an essential activity well will seem aesthetically attractive as a result.  Good website design thus begins by asking what the different purposes or activities of different website visitors will be, and then builds a separate storyboard for each such activity to ensure each one is supported and enabled.

Process Design:  A best practice in quality management is business process modeling. When we model business processes in quality management, we don't just blindly document everything people do in their jobs; rather, we identify the purpose of a job and then model the essential tasks for achieving that purpose.  As the saying goes, it's only the last turn of a bolt that tightens the nut - the rest is just movement.  That's why Deming argues that quality management done well results in both reduction of waste and costs and increases in quality.  As a process gets improved such that wasteful steps are eliminated, it reflects what the Japanese call muda, or flow - or ergon.

The centrality of the concept of ergon to all design, while evident in the best practices of all particular design domains, is sometimes challenged by critics of the doctrine that form follows function.  However, the idea that form follows function only becomes Spartan and stern when one has a limited notion of function.  When function is thought of with the richness of ergon, as an essential activity that when done well brings flourishing to the doer who is living well, then the forms that follow function are much more dynamic and engaging.  In fact, when function is seen against the background of the dynamism of the human spirit to do good which is present in all ergon, then the activity of design to enable and facilitate such activity is revealed to be deeply spiritual work.

Comments

[sheSaid]

great post.

[Rick]

Fascinating post, but I should point out that "muda" in Japanese means "waste". I won't dismiss the possibility that it has another specialist meaning that I am unaware of, but I think it's most likely that you've misinterpreted references to the need to create flows that minimize or eliminate "muda".