Design studies
Studies design itself: what designing is, how designers reason and work, and how that knowledge differs from that of the sciences and the humanities.
What it studies
How design is done and what sets it apart. It gives design a language to explain and improve its own way of working.
Principles
The artificial
Designing is thinking about how things ought to be, not only describing how they are.
Wicked problems
Many design problems have no definitive formulation and no correct solution, only better or worse ones.
A way of knowing of its own
Design thinks by proposing solutions, not only by analyzing the problem.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Draw on it to explain how you work, argue why a design process isn’t linear, or teach design.
Avoid
Thinking a design problem can be solved just with more data: often it has to be redefined.
Don’t fall for it
Theory describes how design is done; it isn’t a recipe that guarantees the result.
Methods and tools
- ApproachDesign thinkingTackling open problems the way design does: understanding people, ideating and prototyping.
- ProcessDouble DiamondOpen up and narrow down twice: first to find the right problem, then the solution.
- ApproachResearch through designResearching by designing: prototypes are used to generate knowledge, not just products.
Connections
Campos cercanos
Used in
Related to
Authors and works
- 1969
Herbert A. Simon
Separated the natural sciences from the sciences of the artificial and defined design broadly, as devising how to move from an existing situation to a preferred one.
- 1973
Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber
Called “wicked” the planning problems that cannot be defined once and for all and have no true or false solution.
- 1982
Nigel Cross
Argued that design has a way of knowing of its own, different from that of the sciences and the humanities.
- 1992
Richard Buchanan
Brought the idea of wicked problems into design and described it as a discipline that integrates knowledge from many fields.
Sources
Original sources
- Simon, H. A. (1969). The sciences of the artificial. The MIT Press.
- Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. View source: Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973)
- Cross, N. (1982). Designerly ways of knowing. Design Studies, 3(4), 221–227. View source: Cross, N. (1982)
- Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21. View source: Buchanan, R. (1992)
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