nevertheless representative of design activities.Identifying these elements serves to highlightwhich activities get the attention of researchersreporting on case studies and empirical studies of design.
METHODOLOGY
The authors began the process of identifying andclustering design process elements/stages fromtheir past experiences in cognitive studies of design and systems engineering design. The discus-sion of earlier frameworks by Simon [5] andGibson [6] reflect some of the disciplinary originsof their initial thinking. These past experiences ledthem to consider sampling articles from several journals, mostly in
Design Studies
and
CognitiveScience
, to check the feasibility of identifyingempirical studies of design and being able tocharacterize some of the design stages discussedin such articles. The authors next recorded a seriesof elements that they believed characterized thedesign process, an initial framework of designactivity descriptors. This framework was used tocode an initial set of five empirical journal articlesin
Design Studies
and
Cognitive Science
. The frame-work was adjusted and re-clustered after extensivediscussions on whether the identified elementswere adequately descriptive, comprehensive, anddistinct.After this initial validation, additional articleswere identified through a database search of PsychInfo using these keywords: design; engineer-ing design; design process; design methodology;and cognitive analysis of design. The searchesusing these keywords located articles between theyears 1993 and 2003.From this initial set, the articles were screenedbriefly according to some basic criteria for inclu-sion. Articles that were included must be from apeer-reviewed journal and must involve an empiri-cal investigation of design. The article needed tocome from a journal in which a review of a designprocess represents a major interest in the commu-nity that would read such an article. The empiricalanalysis needed to emphasize the cognitive aspectsof design, not personality issues.
COMMON DESIGN PROCESSELEMENTS/STAGES
The bootstrapping procedure discussed in theprevious section resulted in a set of 15 elements/stages commonly found in the design process. Eachstep represents a distinct aspect of a design activity.Each is mutually exclusive in terms of document-ing a specific describable aspect of the designprocess. However, because a designer can beengaged in activities that have multiple goals andmeanings, it is possible for more than one criterionto be applicable at a time; for example, if adesigner is working on framing what problemneeds to be solved (Explore Problem Representa-tion) while using a sketch (Use Graphical Repre-sentation), two design aspects are applicable. Thedesign aspects are thus mutually exclusive in termsof defining specific aspects of design, but they arenot necessarily mutually exclusive with respect to aparticular event during the design process.
Explore problem representation
This design criterion refers to how designers goabout framing the design task or problem. Fram-ing the design task can involve defining or explor-ing a problem, issue, or artifact that needs to beanalyzed, synthesized, investigated, or constructed.The way in which designers construe their taskcan have an impact on what aspects of a design adesigner emphasizes, on what solutions pathsdesigners choose, and on which goals andconstraints designers meet. This aspect of designcan occur early in the design process when adesigner or design team deliberates what theirtask really is or is about. However, designers canalso decide in the midst of exploring a particulardesign that what he or she actually wants to makeor solve is different from the way they previouslyconstrued it.For example, Guenther
et al
. [8], reported thatone of the differences between experienceddesigners, who had no university educationaltraining or training in design methodology, anddesigners who did have university training indesign methodology was that the former groupgenerally pursued shorter design processes withnarrower objectives and singular solutions. Thelatter group tended to spend more time exploring,clarifying, and changing the problem.Another characteristic associated with exploringthe representation of the problem involves devisingor discovering when to stop pursuing the design orthe problem; in other words, when the solution ordesign fits how the problem or design has beenframed. Simon [5] has characterized the designprocess as an open-ended search process with nouniversal stopping rule at optimality; instead,design involves a process of `satisficing', or decid-ing when a configuration is good enough to becalled complete. Therefore, evidence that adesigner is working on the problem representationinvolves instances in which the designer decideswhat the end product will be.
Explore graphical representation/visualization
Designers often use a strategy of representingsome aspect of a design or design problem usinggraphics or visual media. The main distinction of this category involves the use of visual means toconstruct a representation, contrasting with averbal representation (such as a list of require-ments), a quantitative representation (such as alist of measurements), or other alternative forms of representation (such as kinesthetic, as in the case of a prototype or mock-up). Designers often sketch
What Constitutes Good Design? A Review of Empirical Studies of Design Processes
521
Leave a Comment