When Systems Collide: Designing for Emergence
March 5, 2026
Every mature product eventually surprises its creators.
Emergence isn’t a software invention, it’s a well-established property of living systems in nature. But the concept remains consistent: when parts interact, new patterns form. In software, those patterns can reshape expectations, expand scope, and sometimes redefine what an entire product is actually for.
Over time, I’ve seen this show up in two distinct ways: feature emergence and conceptual emergence.
Emergence is a concept from complexity theory. And it’s the observation that relatively simple systems can give rise to quite complicated outcomes under the right conditions.
Whether that’s the weather, or economies, or in this case, how people work with a software product.
