Thinking Design
Where elegant theories collide with real-world complexity
A book about why so many well-intended designs fall apart in practice, and how to think more clearly about the systems we build, inhabit, and depend on.
What the Book Is About
We like to imagine that good outcomes are the result of good intentions plus good execution. In practice, systems behave according to meanings, incentives, and structures that were never fully articulated. When those systems fail, we often blame the people closest to the work. More often, the real failure started much earlier: where assumptions quietly became architecture.
Thinking Design examines that level. It argues that most “design thinking” frameworks are optimized for workshops and decks rather than for the messy realities where people, institutions, and technologies collide. The book offers a more rigorous, context-aware way of seeing how systems actually work, why they produce the outcomes they do, and what it takes to change them without fooling ourselves.
Who the Book Is For
Designers and Researchers
People frustrated that the tools they were taught don’t match the complexity of the systems they’re asked to shape.
Leaders in Complex Environments
Healthcare, technology, policy, community systems—anyone accountable for outcomes in ambiguous, high-stakes contexts.
Builders and Thinkers
Entrepreneurs, strategists, educators, students, and anyone who suspects that the way we talk about design is too simple for the real world.
Why Now
Organizations are investing heavily in design, transformation, and innovation. At the same time, trust in institutions is fragile, and many of our systems are visibly misaligned with the lives they are meant to support. It is no longer enough to run better workshops or add another layer of experience on top of existing structures.
We need a way of thinking about design that does not treat context as an afterthought; that takes incentives, power, embodiment, and meaning seriously; and that recognizes how choices become systems and how systems become lived experience. This book is an attempt to articulate that way of thinking.
Inside the Book
1. Seeing the system
How assumptions, language, and models shape what we notice and ignore; why many failures of design are failures of description.
2. Designing under real-world constraints
What happens when ideals meet incentives, legacy infrastructure, and human habits; how to work with constraints without surrendering to them.
3. Designing with consequence
What it means to design systems that treat meaning and long-term effects as first-order design materials; why responsibility is the heart of real design.
Follow Along
I’m sharing early ideas, progress updates, and reflections on design and systems. If you’d like to read along, this is the best way to stay connected.
No spam. No noise.
Author’s Note
I’ve spent twenty years at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and design—working with systems that are too complex for simple solutions and too consequential for sloppy thinking. This book grows out of those experiences and the questions they won’t let go.