Working Definition: Designing is a process of developing implementable proposals to improve in the future the balance of a current perceived situation.
[Ger90]: design “is a process of the production of a description of an artefact that meets certain functional requirements (the brief).”
[Sim81]: ?Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.?
CDRN, 2006: “Design is the process of making proposals for change.”
[Ste92]: “…the division of labour between the system and the user.”
[Cha93]: “Engineering design[ing] can be considered a problem solving activity where a design problem and its solutions co-evolve.”
[AS92]: “…design [is] the continuous processing of information between and within different design domains.”
[Fre92]: “It is common now to treat the design process as falling into four stages: Analysis of problem, Conceptual design, Embodiment, Detailing.”
[SB93]: “…the development of any complex system or course of action…without an existing plan.”
[BB94]: “The purpose of design is to produce knowledge about a designed object which can then be used to manufacture the object.”
[LW89a]: “…design can be seen as the transformation of functional requirements into a product which fulfils these requirements.”
[Cow93]: “Designing is: describing a new possibility, which is expected to allow the achievement of a preferred situation.”
Post to phd-design by Daniel Chambers, 12 June 2008: “Seeking differentiation through insight.”
Post to phd-design by Geoff Matthews, 13 June 2008: “the exploration for and specification of realizable possibilities for change in the material culture.”
Post to phd-design by Ian Rooney, 13 June 2008: “the adaptation of representation.”
Post to phd-design by Rosie Hornbuckle, 13 June 2008: “thinking creatively about problems.”
Post to phd-design by Neal Haslem, 14 June 2008: “Design is materialising our future-selves.
Post to phd-design by Eduardo Corte Real, 17 June 2008: “To Design is the necessary and sufficient depiction of (a) feasible thing(s) to be. In consequence Design is the evidence in things of their previous depiction.”
Post to phd-design by Glenn Johnson, 18 June 2008: “design is an artistic act of exceptional engineering. everything else really harks back to the original def. used in the 50 and 60s.”
Post to phd-design by Eduardo Corte Real, 17 June 2008: “To Design is the necessary and sufficient depiction of (a) feasible thing(s) to be. In consequence Design is the evidence in things of their previous depiction.”
Post to phd-design by Terry Love, 20 June 2008: “The verb form of 'design' can be simply viewed as “to create 'a design'”.”
Post to phd-design by Lauchlan A. K. Mackinnon, 21 June 2008: “To me, my intuitive notion of design is fairly clear: design is the deliberate development of some 'solution' that meets specific needs in a given context with an end in mind and an approach that is user- or needs-focused.”
Post to phd-design by Jerry Diethelm, 22 June 2008: “To make a wish.”
Post to phd-design by Paul Osmond, 23 June 2008: “Design is a process of structuring relationships”. (Attributed to Ezio Manzini)
Post to phd-design by Ken Friedman, 25 June 2008: “I?d propose that design is a process of planning to create something new (or to reshape something that exists) to meet a need, to solve a problem or to transform a less desirable situation to a preferred situation.”
Post to phd-design by Kathryn Simon, 27 June 2008: “I think this is really the work that designers do, organize collaborations-which is why it's often so funny that they get paid for their output (to design a product of some kind) when in fact they are organizing the way we'll think about something.”
Post to phd-design by Elizabeth Tunstall, 29 June 2008: “So with all that I've come to define design simply as “the act of translating human values into tangible experiences.” I know this defintion excludes “conceptual design” but my view is that if it is not something that I can experience through sensory perceptions (including extra-sensory perception for all the metaphysicists) then it just part of an incomplete process of designing.”
Design; Concept Design; Configuration Design; Engineering Design; Design theory, cognitive; Design theory, computational; Design science