Adventures in System Seeing Day 1

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

We often think we understand the systems we interact with every day. If you ride a bicycle, you assume you know how it works. But do you?

This post follows the first day of Ruth Malan’s Advent of System Seeing, a series of prompts designed to surface the hidden mental models we hold about everyday systems.

Day 1 Prompt: Draw a Bicycle

The prompt sounds deceptively simple: draw a bicycle. The goal isn’t artistic skill; it’s a warm‑up exercise for the brain. By forcing us to turn fuzzy mental models into concrete sketches, we quickly see how differently each person perceives “the system.”

Bubble Diagram

The first part asks for a bubble diagram that shows key concepts and relationships.

• My diagram was a network of functional parts: frame, gears, seat, shock absorbers.
• My husband, Brian, called this an “engineering mind” view, focusing on internal architecture.

Even this view had gaps. When I tried to include the complex braking system, Brian reminded me that most bikes don’t have calipers or cantilevers—our own bike, Frankie’s, has a simple brake. The exercise highlighted that there isn’t a single “perfect bike” model.

Memory Sketch

The next step is to sketch a bicycle from memory without looking at one. This is where the illusion of explanatory depth usually collapses.

• Brian struggled to draw the bike in isolation. For him, the system felt incomplete without its environment. He eventually added a rider—a figure resembling Abraham Lincoln—and a cat in a basket. He found it easier to draw the mechanics once a human was placed at the center.
• This mirrors a reflection from Sebastian Hans, another participant:

“The system only works at all in connection with its environment. Without the ground, the bicycle doesn’t move.”

Child’s Perspective

Our son, Frankie, approached the prompt differently. While the prompt asks us to notice what is there, Frankie focused on what should be there.

• His mental model of a “functional bike” included rocket launchers and a puppy, heavily influenced by the block‑style art of Minecraft.
• He started from a tricycle, sparking a debate about the boundaries of the system: does a tricycle count when drawing a bicycle?

Frankie’s view reminded us that users often bring expectations to a system that designers never anticipated.

Reflections

Ruth Malan sums up the purpose of the exercise:

“Our mental models are incomplete, but we don’t know this until we really engage with them.”

When we forced ourselves to draw:

• I saw the mechanical structure.
• Brian saw the human relationship.
• Frankie saw the potential features.

None of us was wrong, but none of us had the full picture alone. To build better systems, we must stop assuming our mental model is the only one that matters. We need to pick up a pencil, draw, share our drawing, and then see what everyone else is drawing.

How to Join the Practice

You can try the System Seeing practice yourself; it only takes 15–20 minutes.

• Visit the prompt: Go to Ruth Malan’s Day 1 page.
• Don’t skip the bubble diagram: It reveals how you structure relationships in your head.
• Compare notes: Share your drawing (or a link to it) in the comments and discuss. The differences in the drawings are more valuable than the drawings themselves.