Abstract
As ‘designing’ is a diverse phenomenon, but design processes have many important features in common with some other design processes, we can gain insights into how and why designers do what they do by making cross-domain comparisons. In this paper we propose a research programme for design studies: systematising these insights by using comparisons between design processes to compile a catalogue of patterns of designing – sets of features of design processes linked by causal mechanisms, that in combination with each other give a wide range of design processes their distinctive forms. The catalogue of patterns should include patterns describing features at different levels, linked by different sorts of causal mechanisms, so that different theoretical views and scales of description should be integrated in a richer unified understanding of designing.
Citation
Stacey, M., Eckert, C., Earl, C., Bucciarelli, L., and Clarkson, P. (2002) A comparative programme for design research, in Durling, D. and Shackleton, J. (eds.), Common Ground - DRS International Conference 2002, 5-7 September, London, United Kingdom. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2002/researchpapers/75
A comparative programme for design research
As ‘designing’ is a diverse phenomenon, but design processes have many important features in common with some other design processes, we can gain insights into how and why designers do what they do by making cross-domain comparisons. In this paper we propose a research programme for design studies: systematising these insights by using comparisons between design processes to compile a catalogue of patterns of designing – sets of features of design processes linked by causal mechanisms, that in combination with each other give a wide range of design processes their distinctive forms. The catalogue of patterns should include patterns describing features at different levels, linked by different sorts of causal mechanisms, so that different theoretical views and scales of description should be integrated in a richer unified understanding of designing.