Five fundamental perspectives that shape great design
I wish I'd known them early in my career.
🕰️ Est. reading time: 3 minutes
In the next few weeks, I'll begin a new journey in a master's program. Yes, I'm a student again. After graduating with my computer science degree 14 years ago, I told myself I'd never go back to university.
However, time proved me wrong. I've been developing a strong desire to challenge myself and thrive in this ever-changing tech landscape. 🤞
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Looking at design thinking in a different way
These past few days, as prep before uni starts, I've been diving into pre-materials like books, papers, and articles. One academic paper, in particular, caught my interest, and I wanted to share it with you. This paper critically examines the concept of design thinking, which means different things in different contexts.
Some of you might be fed up with hearing that term, just like me. I've gone from being curious about what design thinking is to thinking it's impractical and over-hyped. In fact, design thinking is packaged and popularized to make the design process accessible to non-designers, especially in management and business.
However, the paper talks about design thinking not just from a business perspective, but also looks at the thought processes and unique methods we use in our daily work as designers. They call this 'designerly thinking.'
The paper shows five different views from various experts in different fields. Surprisingly, these views don't compete with each other. Instead, they can develop side by side.
Five key perspectives to think about design
Design as the Creation of Artifacts (Herbert Simon) Herbert Simon, from cognitive science and economics, saw design as a rational, systematic process focused on creating new artifacts. The four pillars of Simon's views are:
Rational Decision-Making: Making logical and well-informed choices.
Systematic Process: Following organized steps to reach goals.
Bounded Rationality: Understanding that we have limits on our information and thinking ability.
Experimental Approach: Testing and improving ideas repeatedly, like in science experiments.
Design as a Reflexive Practice (Donald Schön) Rooted in philosophy and organizational theory, Donald Schön emphasized the importance of reflective practice, where professionals learn and adapt through reflection-in-action. In his book "The Reflective Practitioner," Schön uses the example of an architect to illustrate this concept. He describes how architects, much like designers, engage in a continuous cycle of action and reflection.
Design as a Problem-Solving Activity (Richard Buchanan) Richard Buchanan highlighted the role of design in addressing "wicked problems" through iterative methods that integrate diverse perspectives.
Design as a Way of Making Sense of Things (Cross and Lawson) From design research and architecture, Cross and Lawson focused on practical reasoning and understanding, describing the thought processes unique to designers.
Design as the Creation of Meaning (Krippendorff) Krippendorff centered on the semantic aspect of design, viewing it as a process of creating and communicating cultural meanings through artifacts.
I wish I'd known them early in my career
While these perspectives might not be completely new to us–we've discussed design as problem-solving a lot—looking at each of them closely could inspire us in our mindsets and approaches to design.
Looking back, I wish I'd known about these five fundamental perspectives earlier in my career. Each one represents a unique superpower, often hidden strengths that go unnoticed or underappreciated in our daily work as designers:
Simon's systematic process
Schön's reflection-in-action
Buchanan's problem-solving
Cross and Lawson's sense-making
Krippendorff's meaning creation
So far, I've only read Schön's book about reflection-in-action, which I wrote about a while ago.
How one idea has influenced my work
Even this one perspective has already influenced my approach to design. I'm now more consciously reflecting on my process, often engaging in self-talk during projects: "What am I doing here? Why did I make this choice?" or "How does this solution align with the user's needs?" This internal dialogue has become a crucial part of my design process. I'm embracing these moments of self-talk, using them as opportunities to pause, consider my decisions, and evaluate their outcomes.
As I prepare to explore the other perspectives, I'm excited to see how they might further transform my design approaches. If Schön's ideas alone have had such an impact, I can only imagine how a deeper understanding of all other viewpoints could enrich my skills, and broaden my approach to design challenges.
I hope this will open up a new horizon for you to explore and improve yourself as a designer.
I'll see you in the next issue.
Your Design Buddy,
Thomas
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Interesting readings on Substack:
Thanks for sharing mas Thomas and good luck for your masters!