Defining Design
How can we define design? design is such a contended concept that it might not even hold any relevance to try and make a good efinition of it. Design is always in flux anyway so why even bother? Onthe other hand design is such a wide spread activity that making good definition of it might enable better design and better design teaching. So I have been struggling a bit with a good definition of design to see if it could be contained in one simple sentence:
Design is the conscious exploring of potential futures
This definition actually contains some of the most important aspects of design, in my humble opinion. Compared to Herbert Simon’s “Design is devising courses of action aimed at changing current situations into preferred ones” it contains the exploratory aspect of design which I think is important. Both definitions point to the fact that design is an activity focused on the future. “Devising courses of action aimed at (…)” means that the actual activity of designing means to work on a future plan that will achieve a particular outcome. In my definition I try to emphasize that design is not only to lay plans, but entails the testing of these plans, somehow. Simon’s definition also contains, what he has later been heavily criticized for, the notion that design is problem solving. I don’t agree with this since there many designers designing e.g. clothes who are not faced with an actual problem, except if we define yet another trendy top as a problem with a more desired situation – namely a new successful collection for the manufacturer.
Neither of these definitions, however, have a built in exclamation that design has to have an aesthetic edge. This is because there are so many people working with design from various perspectives, and a good definition needs to be able to contain these perspectives. People often want to use a definition of such a field to exclude others from the field. That’s OK. But in the specific situation of designI think I think it is counterproductive.
“Design is the conscious exploring of potential futures” also tries to convey what is known as “the imaginary leap” or “the design gap”. Design is an activity taking place in present but directed towards the future. At the same time design is taking place in the future and directed towards moving a potential future towards the present. Looks like this.
The big dark arrow is design process in present time. At some point the designers needs to imagine a possible future – no more research or asking users will grant the design idea. This means that the designer takes an imaginary leap and jumps the gap into the future. The design work from here is then to reconnect this future vision with reality in the present. This might involve sketching, prototyping, calculating models etc.
What do you think?