If your system was a house, would you want to live in it?

In his book Notes on the Synthesis of Form Christopher Alexander writes about how to design buildings:

“[A good design is an] effort to achieve fitness between two entities: the form in question and its context.”

The language may seem confusing, but he’s actually talking about two very simple things. By form he means the building that you are designing. By context he means the environment in which the building you are designing is going to exist.