Intervention Design Pattern Library
FAQ
Anything — an action, structure, relationship, or condition — that changes the behavior or future trajectory of a system. That covers obvious things like laws and protests, but also quieter ones, like a sidewalk, a tax structure, or a platform’s algorithm, that shape behavior long after anyone remembers deciding them.
How is this different from design thinking?▾
Design thinking usually asks, “how might we solve this problem?” and works inside the systems that produced it — designing better products, services, or experiences. IDT asks, “how might we influence the system that produces this problem?” and treats the system itself — its policies, incentives, institutions, and narratives — as the design material.
What do Top-Down, Bottom-Up, and Middle-Out mean?▾
They’re the three domains IDT uses to describe how influence moves through a system: Top-Down through formal authority and policy, Bottom-Up through community and lived experience, Middle-Out through the institutions and networks that coordinate between the two. See the Frameworks page for the full breakdown.
What are the Love and Power scores next to each case?▾
Two axes used to plot every case in the Library: Love for how much care or connection an intervention expresses toward the people it touches, and Power for how much formal or structural force it carries. Neither one alone determines success — the Explorer’s scatter view is built to let you see both at once.
Is IDT an academic theory or a practical tool?▾
Both, loosely. It’s grounded in systems thinking, transition design, and sustainability transitions research, but the paper is explicit that it’s a practice-based, interpretive framework rather than an empirically validated theory — a lens for analyzing and designing interventions, offered for critique and refinement rather than as a finished model.
Where do the cases in the Library come from?▾
A mix of news coverage, public records, and pattern analysis across civic, ecological, technological, and governance contexts — spanning grassroots campaigns, court rulings, government policy, and cases where power was used without care. Every case lists its source.
Can I submit a case?▾
Yes — use the submission form linked on the Resources page. New submissions are reviewed before they’re published to the Library and Explorer.
Who is this framework for?▾
Designers, systems practitioners, educators, and organizers working on long-term change — anyone trying to move past isolated interventions and toward understanding how a portfolio of interventions, across scales, actually shifts a system.
Is the framework finished?▾
No, and it isn’t meant to be. The paper describes IDT as an evolving field of inquiry and explicitly invites critique, comparative case studies, and collaborative refinement rather than treating itself as a closed theory.