Can a machine design?

One strand of my research has been concerned with the computer as a design tool; but a second strand has been concerned with design computing as a research tool for improving our understanding of the design process. Some of this latter research is based on the simulation of computer behaviour by human beings - a reversal of the more usual approach - and some is based on comparisons of computational models with human design behaviour. Despite recent doubts expressed by some authors, I suggest that the question, 'Can a machine design?� is still a useful question to ask

Achieving pleasure from purpose: the methods of Kenneth Grange, product designer

This paper is based on a case study of the working methods of a highly successful product designer, Kenneth Grange. Relevant aspects of his personal background are introduced. Three of his well-known projects are selected for analysis: a camera for Kodak, a sewing machine for Maruzen, and the British Rail High Speed Train. His designs are characterised by a concern with designing for purpose, so as to achieve pleasure for the user. General lessons are drawn from the examples, and comparisons are made with other studies of highly successful designers. Similarities with these others include a tendency to develop a systems view of the problem; defining or framing the problem to be solved in a fresh, challenging way; and developing details from basic principles of function, engineering and manufacture

Design cognition: results from protocol and other empirical studies of design activity

The paper reviews protocol and other empirical studies of design activity, and summarises results relevant to understanding the nature of design cognition from an interdisciplinary, domain-independent overview. Results are presented in three major aspects of design cognition - the formulation of problems, the generation of solutions, and the utilisation of design process strategies. Parallels and comparisons between results are drawn, and a number of issues identified. Many similarities of design cognition across domains of professional practice are found. It seems that the ‘intuitive’ behavior of experienced designers is often highly appropriate to design tasks, although appearing to be ‘unprincipled’ in theory

Design Research: a disciplined conversation

Design research is alive and well, and living in an increasing number of places. I find encouraging evidence for this in the grwoth of research-based journals in the design world over the last ten to fifteen years. or example, Design Studies was launched in 1979, Design Issues, first appeared in 1984; the Journal of Design History in 1988; Research in Engineering Design in 1989; and Languages of Design in 1992. These are not the only ones; and therehave been others, of course, in other languages, such as Temes de Disseny (Catalan and Spanish), 1986; Revue Sciences et Thechniques de la Conception (French), 1992; FormDiskurs (German), 1996

Design Education for Laypeople

Traditionally, design education has been aimed at preparing students for a specialist role in one of the design professions. But if design education is to be made available more widely, perhaps to everyone, then it must have very different aims. It will need to be a general education in design for laypeople, not a specialist education for design professionals. In discussing design education for laypeople, therefore, I assume that we must mean something other than merely a wider provision of specialist education. I assume that we might want to question the relevance of specialist education, that we might want to consider alternatives to specialist education, that we might want to enable people who are specifically non-specialists to become involved in critical decision-making in the design process, and that we might even want to provide some form of counter-courses that will enable these non-specialists to challenge designers (and their clients) as to the validity of their decisions. Beyond this specialist vs. non-specialist dichotomy, we may also wan t to ask if there cannot be a new pattern of educational provision that does not perpetuate this 'us' and 'them' fragmentation of society; perhaps rather as the 'barefoot doctors' and other social experiments in China have been aimed at breaking down class and specialism barriers

Expertise in Professional Design

Studies of the nature of expert performance in professional design originated in the late 1960s with protocol studies of architects and other design professionals. Primarily, they have been conducted by researchers who are themselves situated within the design professions, and these studies have been an important element in the more general growth of design research. More recently, researchers from fields such as psychology and cognitive science have also begun to make significant contributions to the study of design expertise. I will review and give examples of the range of research methods that have been applied in developing the understanding of expertise in design. I will then discuss the key aspects of design expertise, and some of its apparent weaknesses, that have been established from these studies. I will briefly comment on some of the observed development of competence within students of design, and conclude with a summary of what we know of the nature of design expertise. My starting point is that the ability to design is widespread amongst all people, but that some people appear to be better designers than others