This gets to the chicken vs egg paradox (N+C Paradigm). We can leave behind such logics if we carefully understand how complex systems participate in co-making. The thing and its environment co-make each other.
A process where you and the “thing” you are making shape and transform each other.
Both the “product” and the community of users come into being via this process. The key insight is, you are not making a product after which you will discover a community of “users.”the process of design co-evolves the users and the product in an iterative loop of co-development and co-specification. This process stands in deliberate contrast to ideas of “customer discover” and “customer validation” or the prototyping process in design thinking.
See: Emergence.
