Design Theory - Lecture 01: What is design?

Design Theory
Lecture 01: What is design?
Communication &
Multimedia Design
Bas Leurs (b.l.f.leurs@hr.nl)
February 10, 2014

Is design cognition a black box?
Input Output
Also see Jones (1970) on black and glass boxes

Design theory tries
to describe or explain
design activity
What is design?
And why do we actually design?
How do designers think and act?
This lecture
This lecture

industrial design
environmental design
architecture
software design
interface design
typographic design
graphic design
product design
educational design
engineering design
interaction design
user experience design
experience design
webdesign
editorial design
service design
game design
interior design
database design
emotional design
information design
Categories of Design
sound design
social design
strategic design
communication design

Some deﬁnitions
of design...

Jot down three keywords
that you think should be
found in the deﬁnition of
design

Design is to design a design to produce a design
John Heskett (2005)
a general concept
an action
a plan or
intention the outcome/
result
noun verb noun noun

Design is a profession that is concerned with the
creation of products, systems, communications and
services that satisfy human needs, improve people’s
lives and do all of this with respect for the welfare of
the natural environment.
profession?
Charles Owen (2004)

Koskinen, Zimmerman, Binder, Redstrom & Wensveen (2011)
Designers are people who
are paid to produce visions of
better futures and make those
things happen.

Page (1966)
The imaginative jump from
present facts to future possibilities

Harold Nelson & Erik Stolterman (2002)
ability?
"Design is the ability to imagine
that-which-does-not-yet-exist, to make it
appear in concrete form as a new,
purposeful addition to the real world."
The Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World

Design is about making decisions,
often in the face of uncertainty
Joseph Zinter (2012)
Asimow, 1962
Decision making in the face of
uncertainty, with high penalties for error

Bryan Lawson & Kees Dorst (2009)
Designers typically produce novel
unexpected solutions, tolerate uncertainty,
work with incomplete information, apply
imagination and constructive forethought
to practical problems and use drawings
and other modelling media as means of
problem solving

Herbert Simon (1969)
"Everyone designs who devises
courses of action aimed at
changing existing situations
into preferred ones."
Most cited deﬁnition of design

initial
state
process
future
state
transformation functioncurrent situation desired situation
A very basal model of design
Doblin (1987)

John Chris Jones
Design Methods: Seeds of human future
(1970)

Get ready for...
the ultimate deﬁnition of design

P R E L U D E
CHANGE
IS
DIFFERENCE
•
CHANGE OF DIFFERENCE
IS
PROCESS
•
CHANGE OF PROCESS
IS
EVOLUTION
•
CHANGE OF EVOLUTION
IS
DESIGN
Fig. I-5 Hierarchy of Change
llenge to cultures, or societies, on how to deal with change at these multipl
Harold Nelson & Erik Stolterman (2002/2012)
Design = Change

However...
there is even a ﬁnal ultimate deﬁnition !

“...but now, more than thirty years
later, and in a changed world, I am
no longer happy with man-made nor
with things...”
John Christopher Jones (2002)
http://www.softopia.demon.co.uk/2.2/digital_diary_02.07.14.html
Design is to initiate change in man-made things

thoughts and actions
intended to change
Awesome... or not?
cognitive (thinking)
acting, doing
Designer
“User”

intended to change

Design is the core of purposeful and creative action of
the active building or relations between man and his
world
Jantsch (1975)
In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer.
It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains
and sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the
meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of
a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in
successive outer layers of the product or service.
Jobs (n.d.)
Design is to initiate change in man-made things
Jones (1970)
thoughts and actionsintended to change
thoughts and actionsJones (2002)
Designers are people who are paid to produce visions
of better futures and make those things happen.
Koskinen, Zimmerman, Binder, Redstrom & Wensveen (2011)Designers typically produce novel unexpected
solutions, tolerate uncertainty, work with incomplete
information, apply imagination and constructive
forethought to practical problems and use drawings
ans other modelling media as means of problem
solving'
Lawson & Dorst (2009)
Design is the translation of information in the form of
requirements, constraints, and experience into
potential solutions which are considered by the
designer to meet required performancecharacteristics.
Luckman (1984)
The entire activity from the stage of realization of a
need to change to translating the image of the future
system into reality is termed design.Mathur (1978)
Design is the solution to the sum of the needs of a
particular set of circumstancesMatchett (1968)
No longer associated with objects and appearances,
design is increasingly understood in a much wider
sense as the human capacity to plan and produce
desired outcomes.Mau (2007)
A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense
Munari (1966)
Design is the investigation of contemplated and
present systems to formulate, through the ideal
systems concept, the most effective systems
Nadler (1981)
Design generates, organizes, and evaluates a large
number of alternatives; keeping focused on the best
possible or most ideal solution, rather than on
collecting and analyzing data about he problem.
Nadler & Hibino (1990)
Design is the ability to imagine that-which-does-not-yet-
exist, to make it appear in concrete form as a new,
purposeful addition to the real world.Nelson & Stolterman (2002)
Design is a profession that is concerned with the
creation of products, systems, communications and
services that satisfy human needs, improve people’s
lives and do all of this with respect for the welfare of
the natural environment.Owen (2004)
The imaginative jump from present facts tofuture possibilies
Page (1966)
Design is integral to all life and human activity
Papenek (1972)
Design is a conscious and intuitive effort to impose
meaningful order.... Design is both the underlying
matrix of order and the tool that creates it.
Papenek (1983)
Design is the method of putting form and content
together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions;
there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design
can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is
so complicated.
Rand (2001)
A creative activiy, design brings into being something
new and useful that has not existed previously
Reswick (1965)
The designer intends to change a segment of the
universe. His motivation is consequential action, not
understanding or explanation... He designs whatever
purpose he has in his mind devises a schema to
accomplish this Purpose.Rittel (1973)
Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed
at changing existing situations into preferred ones.
Simon (1969)
Design is a contiunuum of processes, an endless but
moving chain of development, realization, and
evaluation, directed toward purposeful creation
Van der Ryn (1966)
Design consists primarily of six types of activity:
intelligence, analysis, synthesis, choice,communication, and interpretation. Theimplementation of design its concrete phase. The
failure of any one of the six fundamental types will
usually assure failure to implementWarfield (1990)
Design is a new way of resolving basic human
conflicts, critical for securing safe passage to a
desirable human futureWeisbord (1992)
Design is about making decisions, often in the face of
uncertainty.
Zinter (2012)
Design is initiated by using a very broad brush in
sketching the first version. Then details are gradually
added. The process continues until a sufficiently
detailed design is obtained that enables us to carry it
out
Ackoff, 1981
Design is the use of scientific principles, technical
information, and imagination in the definition of a
system to perform specific functions with maximum
economy and efficiency.
Archer (1966)
The act of designing is the prescription or model of the
finished work in advance of its embodiment.
Archer (1984)
Decision making in the face of uncertainty, with high
penalties for error.
Asimow (1962)
A pruposeful activity, design is directed towards the
goals of fulfilling human needs
Asimow (1962)
Design aims to conceive the idea of a desired system
and prepare a description of it
Banathy (1979)
Designing is creating a structure that organizes the
logic in the system.
Beck (2000)
Design establishes and defines solutions to and
pertinent structures for problems not solved before, or
new solutions to problems which have previously been
solved in a different way.
Blumrich (1970)
Design simulates what we want to make before we
make it, as many times as may be necessary to feel
confident in the final result
Booker (1964)
Design is the human power to conceive, plan and re-
alize all of the products that serve human beings in
the accomplishment of their individual or collective
purposes.
Buchanan (2006)
A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor,
mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary
strategist.
Buckminster Fuller (n.d.)
Design is primarily a thought process and
communication process, tranferring ideas into action
by communication. It is a natural function, expressed
in the many activities we engage in. For the
teleologist, design means the conscious attempt to
create a better world. For the antiteleologist design is
the conscious part of action.
Churchman (1971)
Design is “values made visible”
Chick & Micklethwaite (2011)
Design is what links creativity and innovation. It
shapes ideas to become practical and attractive
propositions for users or customers. Design may be
described as creativity deployed to a specific end.’
Cox (2005)
Design is seen as a process of "variety reduction" with
the very large number of potential solutions reduced
by external constraints and by the designer's own
cognitive structures.
Darke (1984)
Design is an act of love.
Desmet (2011)
Design is more than an agent of change, it is change.
Doorley & Witthoft (2012)
... a plan for arranging elements in such a way as to
best accomplish a particular purpose.
Eames (1989)
Design is a mode of action.
Eames (n.d.)
Design means to map out, to plan, or to arrange the
parts into a whole which satisfies the objectives
involved.
FitzGerald & FitzGerald (1987)
Design is a quintessential cognitive task. The activity of
design involves the mental formulation of future states
of affairs. The products of design activity are external
representations of such possible futures.
Goel & Pirolli (1992).
Design is to design a design to produce a design
Heskett (2005)
Design is the purposeful organization of resources to
accomplish a goal.
Hevner, March, Park & Ram (2004)
Thus, labeling an activity ‘designing’ generally
presupposes the existence of a use plan and a group
of prospective users.
Houkes (2008)
A designer is anyone engaging in an intentional,
purposeful activity with the aim of devising a
description (plan) for a product or artefact.
Hybs & Gero (2006)
Design is a creative activity whose aim is to establish
the multi-faceted qualities of objects, processes,
services and their systems in whole life cycles.
Therefore, design is the central factor of innovative
humanisation of technologies and the crucial factor of
cultural and economic exchange.
ICSID (n.d.)
A Digest: Definitions of Design
By Bas Leurs – February 6, 2014
Zie N@tschool!

satisfy
improve
purposeful
aims
plans
intentions
imaginative
present
future
prefered situation
existing situation
problem
solution
uncertainty
human
people
users
creating
changing
decision making
problem solving Changing an existing situation into a
preferred situation, requires imagination
to formulate a plan that deals with
uncertainty that the future holds.
new
innovative

“One of the difﬁculties in understanding
design, is its multifaceted nature. There
is no single way of looking at design
that captures the 'essence' without
missing some other salient aspect.”
Bryan Lawson & Kees Dorst (2009), also see Buchanan (1992, 2001, p. 27)
As you might have noticed... design is quite an ambiguous notion

Design as...
• A mixture of creativity and analyses
• Problem solving
• Evolution
• The creation of solutions to problems
• Integrating into a coherent whole
• A fundamental human activity
• Etc...
Bryan Lawson & Kees Dorst (2009)

let’s try to grasp the very
essence of design... actually the
problem designers are facing in
their everyday practice

“Design is the performing
of a very complicated act
of faith”
John Christopher Jones (1966/1970)

But, what makes
design such a
complicated activity?
Write down one word!

What makes design
so complicated
according to Jones?
In Design Methods (1970)
“The fundamental problem is
that designers are obliged to
use current information to
predict a future state that will
not come about unless their
predictions are correct.”
“The designer must be able to
predict the ultimate effects of
their proposed design as well
as specifying the actions that
are needed to bring these
effects about.”
47

effect(s)customer client
business
designer plan
sketch/prototype
production
manufacturing
product
Design is not (only) about the product. Actually it is about the effects you want to achieve
Business
Competitive advantage
Users
Pleasurable experience
Ecology/society
Ecological footprint/
wellfare

short term
effects
mid term
effects
long term
effects
However, effects are not easy to predict...
We cannot know what the unintended consequences of
a design will be, and we cannot know, ahead of time,
the full, systemic effects of a design implementation.
Nelson & Stolterman (2002)
See Jones (1970)

“If we can design our way into
difﬁculty, we can design our way out.”
John Thackara (2005)
Designers are optimists

Everyone is
a designer!
True, or false

Nigel Cross (2011)
"Everyone can – and does – design. We all design
when we plan for something new to happen, whether
that might be a new version of a recipe, a new
arrangement of the living room furniture, or a new lay
tour of a personal web page. […] So design thinking is
something inherent within human cognition; it is a key
part of what makes us human.” (p. 3)
IKEA!!!
“Design ability is possessed by everyone”
Nigel Cross (1990)