Abstract
Most of design researches have paid attention to the rational aspect of design, such as systematic process, design reasoning, design knowledge and so on. However, flashes of insight really occur in many designs. By protocol analysis, the present paper studies such a particular thinking phenomenon of design—the so-called ‘design eureka’. Design eureka always occurs suddenly and is so slippery to catch and to explain. Before design eureka can be understood by analysis, it is the first task to capture it successfully. This paper aims to develop an effective method of describing design eureka in order to have further analysis possible. Four real-world protocols, all experienced design eureka in their design process, are deeply investigated by a series of analyses. In the tables and network-figures of the analytic method, the actual evolutions of design thinking are visualized and show out the place of “design eureka” in the context with design “bottleneck”. Secondly, through the advanced content analysis, the evolution of bottleneck problems and the “exterritoriality” of design eureka are revealed and explained. Three critical characteristics of design eureka are discussed. The results indicate a kind of particular faith in designer’s intention, which plays a central role of design-art creativity and makes design to go beyond problemsolving scope but near a kind of art-working.
Keywords
analysis of design thinking, architectural design, critical thinking, creative processes and design, design cognition
Citation
Chiang, Y. (2006) The Role of Design Eureka in Design Thinking, in Friedman, K., Love, T., Côrte-Real, E. and Rust, C. (eds.), Wonderground - DRS International Conference 2006, 1-4 November, Lisbon, Portugal. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2006/researchpapers/92
The Role of Design Eureka in Design Thinking
Most of design researches have paid attention to the rational aspect of design, such as systematic process, design reasoning, design knowledge and so on. However, flashes of insight really occur in many designs. By protocol analysis, the present paper studies such a particular thinking phenomenon of design—the so-called ‘design eureka’. Design eureka always occurs suddenly and is so slippery to catch and to explain. Before design eureka can be understood by analysis, it is the first task to capture it successfully. This paper aims to develop an effective method of describing design eureka in order to have further analysis possible. Four real-world protocols, all experienced design eureka in their design process, are deeply investigated by a series of analyses. In the tables and network-figures of the analytic method, the actual evolutions of design thinking are visualized and show out the place of “design eureka” in the context with design “bottleneck”. Secondly, through the advanced content analysis, the evolution of bottleneck problems and the “exterritoriality” of design eureka are revealed and explained. Three critical characteristics of design eureka are discussed. The results indicate a kind of particular faith in designer’s intention, which plays a central role of design-art creativity and makes design to go beyond problemsolving scope but near a kind of art-working.