A Systems Approach To Designing Digital Development Interventions
About a decade ago, roughly 70% of ICT4D products failed. Today, depending on whose statistics you use, that number has barely moved. Which is striking, because digital development has improved enormously over the last decade:
- better connectivity
- better UX
- better tooling
- more human-centred design
- more evidence
And yet scale and sustained adoption still evade many digital initiatives. For a long time, we treated this as a technology problem. If products failed, we asked:
- Was the interface intuitive?
- Was onboarding clear?
- Did users have the right digital skills?
But after years designing in fragile and low-resource environments, we kept encountering the same reality: Many digital products were not failing because the technology was poor. They were failing because the systems around them did not support the behaviours required for adoption, trust or sustained use. The product worked. The system did not.
Inclusion lives in systems, not services
Over time, we realised something important: Inclusion does not live inside digital services.It lives inside:
- trust
- relationships
- permission
- infrastructure
- incentives
- social norms
- institutions
- power dynamics
Which means digital interventions cannot be designed in isolation from the systems they operate within. So we began using a different approach. Instead of asking: “What should we build?”
We started asking: “What conditions need to change for new behaviour to become possible?”
Introducing the Here I Am Systems Intervention Canvas
The Systems Intervention Canvas is a practical framework for designing digital interventions around real-world systems rather than products alone. It shifts digital from being the starting point of the process to one part of a broader intervention strategy. The framework follows a different sequence:
1. Define the outcome
Start with the future state you want to create. Not: “People use an app.” But: “What real-world change are we trying to enable?”
2. Identify the required behaviours
What behaviours would need to happen for that outcome to become possible? Systems outcomes are created through behaviours, not technologies.
3. Map the actors around those behaviours
Who shapes whether those behaviours are possible? We focus on:
- access
- permission
- trust
4. Understand the wider system
What broader forces shape behaviour?
- social norms
- policies
- infrastructure
- incentives
- governance
- power dynamics
5. Identify the key constraint
Systems are complex. No intervention can redesign an entire system. So we focus on identifying the key constraint most directly blocking change.
6. Design the intervention
Only then do we ask: “What could change the conditions around that behaviour?” Importantly, interventions are not always products.
7. Define the role of digital
Only after understanding the system do we ask: “What role should digital actually play here?”
Sometimes digital improves access.Sometimes it strengthens trust.Sometimes it reduces friction.Sometimes it connects fragmented systems. And sometimes digital should play only a very small role.
Digital is part of the intervention. Not the singular starting point.
The Systems Intervention Canvas is not anti-technology. It is about helping technology reach its greatest potential within the systems people already live inside. Because the question is not: “Does the product work?”
The question is: “Does the system enable the behaviour required?”
If you'd like to learn more about how to use the Here I Am Systems Intervention Canvas, drop us an email at hello@hereiamstudio.com, we'd love to chat.
