Quantum Duality of Design

Whenever I am asked to define design I can’t help but feel the ghosts of Heisenberg and Schrödinger looking over my shoulder; Existing in multiple realities, and at different scales, appearing to some as tangible, embodied by artifacts—apps, products, spaces, (particles?) while to others its best described as fluid— almost etherial, described by processes, methods, frameworks (waves?). I have come to realize that “design” is best described as being quantum.

These different perceptions of design are like a set of quantum superpositions, allowing design to exist in combination of these multiple states corresponding to the different possible outcomes. Of course that means it comes with its own uncertainty principle as well. That is, there are limits to the extent these different properties maintain their meaning when you try to use them simultaneously to make a determination, but they can all happily co-exist as long as you don’t open the box to find out.