Design, science and wicked problems

Robert Farrell and Cliff Hooker, School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2305, Australia

We examine the claim that design is demarcated from science by having wicked
problems while science does not and argue that it is wrong. We examine each of
the ten features Rittel and Weber hold to be characteristic of wicked problems
and show that they derive from three general sources common to science and
design: agent finitude, system complexity and problem normativity, and play
analogous roles in each. This provides the basis for a common core cognitive
process to design and science. Underlying our arguments is a shift to a strategic
problem-solving conception of method in both disciplines that opens up new
opportunities for synergetic cross-disciplinary research and practice.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: wicked problems, design methodology, scientific method, episte-

mology, complexity

A
n important class of argument intended to distinguish design from sci-
ence is focussed around the claim that design is characteristically faced
with wicked problems whereas science is not. The two kinds of prob-
lem are argued to require different skills and methods for their solution. There-
fore, design and science are distinct types of intellectual study and production.

An influential position of this kind was set out by Rittel and Weber in their
landmark paper:

. the classical paradigm of science and engineering e the paradigm that

has underlain modern professionalism e is not applicable to the problems
of open societal systems. . the cognitive and occupational styles of the
professions e mimicking the cognitive style of science and the occupa-
tional style of engineering e have just not worked on a wide array of social
problems. . We shall want to suggest that the social professions were
misled somewhere along the line into assuming that they could be applied
scientists e that they could solve problems in the ways that scientists can
solve their sorts of problems. The error has been a serious one.
Corresponding author:
Cliff Hooker.
Cliff.Hooker@new- The kinds of problems that planners deal with e societal problems e are
castle.edu.au inherently different from the problems that scientists and perhaps some
www.elsevier.com/locate/destud
0142-694X $ - see front matter Design Studies 34 (2013) 681e705
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2013.05.001 681
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 classes of engineers deal with. Planning problems are inherently wicked.
(Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 160).1

Rittel and Weber label as ‘tame’, in contrast to wicked, problems they claim are
typical of science. “For any given tame problem, an exhaustive formulation can
be stated containing all the information the problem-solver needs for understand-
ing and solving the problem .” (p. 161) “. their mission [solution goal] is clear.
It is clear, in turn, whether or not the problems have been solved.” (p. 160).

Planning is a species of design, the design of some aspect of societal conditions,

broadly understood. The standard design or planning case starts with a brief
(from a client, employer, etc.); other, less structured, origins also occur but treat-
ing the standard case suffices for these as well. The brief sets out a characterisa-
tion of the problem that motivated it, typically some social imbalance,
dislocation or aggravation, and the kind of solution goal or goals normative
for the work, here the societal condition that is desired in place of the present re-
ality. Thus if planning, but not science, is characterised by wicked problems so,
clearly, is the whole of design to the degree that it resembles a social planning sit-
uation. Pretty clearly this will be true of all those areas of design that involve any
serious form of innovation against client briefs, from advertising to architecture,
from software engineering to soft furnishings. So if planning is separated from
science by wicked problems so also is the whole, or virtually the whole, of design.

At the time of writing, Rittel and Webber were responding specifically to the
disappointed expectations aroused by the new systems approaches to problem
solving that would bring the social sciences within science and engineering,
and more generally to still broader claims for computational approaches to
mind and artificial intelligence, engineering and formal management approaches
to problem solving, and the like that would permit subsumption of psychology
generally (thence economics, etc.) and so also design under the prevailing logical
conception of scientific rationality (cf. Cross, 2007). Though much has changed,
their negative response to such rationalising ambitions remains widely sup-
ported throughout the literature on design process. Cross, for example, claims
that one of the reasons for distinguishing design from science is that “design
problems are ill-defined, ill-structured, or ‘wicked’” (1982, p. 224) whereas sci-
ence problems are mere ‘puzzles’2 to be solved by applying well known rules
to the data given. In a similar vein Willem quotes Archer as saying that “if the
solution to a problem arises automatically and inevitably from the interaction
of the data, then the problem is not, by definition, a design problem”; Willem
goes on to explain that “it is not an ill-structured problem” (1990, p. 44).

In this paper we will examine the arguments presented for the claim that wick-
edness of characteristic problems divides design from science as cognitive prob-
lem-solving processes, that is, that the cognitive or problem-solving nature of
the two processes are importantly different. We will accept that it is legitimate

682 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 to make various distinctions between problems of the tame and wicked sorts,
and thus of the methods and skills required to solve them. But contrary to
common-enough talk where it is made to look as if a problem domain is either
all fully tame or all fully wicked, with nothing in between, the tame/wicked
distinction is not a unitary whole but is made up of a number of different fea-
tures each varying in its degree of tameness and wickedness across problems.
The effect of this is to undercut any argument that simplistically concludes
from exhibiting some wicked problems in design and some tame problems in sci-
ence that there is a principled division between design and science. Instead, we
shall argue that each of design and science will contain various problems that to
varying degrees are wicked across various features of wickedness, and comple-
mentarily for tameness. To defend a principled difference in cognitive process
between design and science it is then necessary to show that these multiple dif-
ferences of degree nonetheless support a principled difference of kind in cogni-
tive process. But Section 2 will show that this cannot be done.

These days this last claim is the more important one. This is because many more
designers today would no doubt allow that there is no simple division of problems
between design and science, yet nonetheless want to hold that there are important
cognitive differences between the two. For instance, Zeisel (2005) and Koskinen,
Zimmerman, Binder, Redstrom, and Wensween (2011) hold that research occurs
within, and about, the design process, but the latter remains distinctive. Our con-
trary ambition here is to show that, at least in respect of their core problem-solving
processes, there is no arguable difference between design and science. (The differ-
ences, which remain real, must lie in their external pragmatic conditions and their
cognitive consequences in turn e see below.) It is crucial to doing this that we also
shift our conception of science, in particular of scientific method, from that which
prevailed in the 1970s when Rittel and Webber published their paper to a more
adequate one which gives a prominent place to strategic problem solving directed
at multi-valued knowledge acquisition. Such a notion was not always available.
For instance, behind Cross’ notion above, that science problems are mere puzzles
to be solved by applying well known rules to the data, lies the assumption that sci-
entific research is fixed by logic, that scientific method is a logical machine that
takes data as input and generates true or most probably true theories as output
using only sound logical inferences. But this once dominant conception of scien-
tific method is now generally agreed by scholars of science to be fundamentally
flawed3 and we are free to shift conceptions. Then, as we shall show, design and
science turn out to share the same core cognitive process. Thus, rather than
dividing design from science cognitively, the distinction helps unite them.

The analysis to follow claims to reveal wicked problem resolution as having a

core cognitive process at its heart deriving from agent finitude e manifested in
limited capacity, resource scarcity and ignorance e together with complexity
and normative constraint. The kind of cognitive process we have in mind is
indicated by that found in Goel’s study of design process (Goel, 1995): (I) an

Design & Wickedness 683

 initial phase of problem space formation where the context of the design situ-
ation (e.g. location, interested parties), the general possibilities of the design sit-
uation, the putatively desired outcome of the design process and the normative
constraints applicable to it are each initially characterised, followed by (II) a
development/exploration phase where a trial space of various potential partial
solutions (e.g. in sketch or model form) is developed and explored and are al-
lowed to mutually interact and are modified, often in interaction with negoti-
ated modification of any and all of the elements of the initial phase (the
problem re-definition aspect) so as to access new resolution pathways and real-
isation of value, and (III) a final production phase where the design outcome is
produced and normative value realised. In abstract, this is the core cognitive
process through which design problems are resolved and its 3-phase sequence,
with their distinctively different internal interactions, provides the cognitive
structure of the process. The characterisation is abstract and general, which al-
lows many differently detailed instantiations to suit individual circumstances,
e.g. between design and science and within each. This process is one among
many possible characterisations of an underlying core cognitive process and
while sketched sufficiently abstractly it has found widespread acceptance
among design theorists (cf. Zeisel, 2005, p. 20; also e.g. Cross, 2006; Lawson,
2005). Nonetheless we use it here only as illustration.

In addition to such a core process, there is a set of pragmatic factors character-

ising wicked problem situations that essentially manifest as defects in problem
specification (vagueness or incoherency) and tightness of normative
constraint, including normative conflict, and these further complicate (and
can even prevent e maximum tightness) obtaining a resolution, though
without altering the underlying core problem-solving process. Though our
analysis to follow does reduce the features of wickedness to these fundamental
elements, cognitive and pragmatic, it does not reduce the practical wickedness
of wicked problems, rather it identifies its origins. This analysis is valuable in
its own right as understanding and valuable practically because it provides a
principled framework for developing practical methodologies for resolving
each of the many different kinds of wicked problems.

Understandably, the great majority of the huge literature on wicked problems

is devoted to general methods for addressing them: integral thinking, morpho-
logical analysis, design analysis, cognitive mapping, and the like, sometimes
complemented by brief initial discussions of what makes for wickedness.4
This literature typically acknowledges at the outset that wicked problems
have cognitive as well as social, political and other aspects, but does not
attempt to extract and characterise their cognitive character.5 But doing that
is precisely what is required to address the issue of whether wickedness divides
design from science as cognitive processes. It is obvious that the problems of
design and science differ in all sorts of ways, for instance in the prevalence
of private clients, the focus on commercial and political versus epistemic

684 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 norms, and so on. And addressing those features as part of problem solving
certainly has an important cognitive component to it; for instance, diversity
of clients often requires negotiation among conflicting outcome expectations.
But it is not obvious, and we shall argue groundless, to infer from those differ-
ences that design and science use different core cognitive problem-solving pro-
cesses. Analogously, the sciences have obvious differences between them e
compare, say, cosmology with geology with cellular biology e but they are
all considered sciences, we do not infer that they therefore differ in their
core cognitive process. In this paper we focus our attention on extracting
the cognitive dimension from the original characterisation of wickedness set
out in the Rittel/Webber paper, as an exemplar for analyses of other character-
isations. In the upshot, this will serve as something of an original analysis of
wickedness and provide good grounds for arguing that wickedness does not
divide design from science on the basis of core cognitive process.

Meanwhile, we recognise that addressing the methodological issues underlying

any proposed tame/wicked divide will still leave other asserted differences be-
tween design and science outstanding, in particular the natural/artificial and
descriptiveefactual/prescriptiveenormative differences. We have addressed
these issues elsewhere (Farrell & Hooker 2012a, 2012b) and will similarly
address other, derivative differences.6 While considering all these is beyond
the scope of this paper, we contend that the strategic conception of science
we advocate forms the proper foundation for also dealing in a systematic
way with these further issues e and comes out in favour of our position con-
cerning the sameness of the core cognitive processes of science and design.

In what follows we delineate three conditions in the problem-solving context

whose methodological consequences, either singly or in combination, consti-
tute wickedness. (For convenience, we take specifying the condition to also
include its methodological consequences.) We then analyse Rittel and Web-
ber’s paper and classify their wickedness-making features in terms of these
three conditions. Along the way we discuss how these three aspects of wicked-
ness are also fully present in science.

1 Wickedness-making features and the distinction

between design and science
In this section we show that the ten wickedness-making features identified by
Rittel and Webber can be reduced to the methodological consequences of
three conditions of the problem situation: 1) finitude; 2) complexity; 3) norma-
tivity. These are widely used notions, but because each can have subtly vari-
able meanings we first briefly indicate our usage:

Finitude. The finitude of our cognitive capacity and our resources, is a pro-
found limitation on our abilities e individual, social, and as a species e to

Design & Wickedness 685

 acquire knowledge of the world and to achieve our other goals in the world.
An immediate expression of our finitude is our ignorance: if we had unlimited
cognitive capacities and resources then we would not be ignorant. As it is, we
are ignorant, not just of the facts and true theories, but of methods for validly
establishing these, the concepts required to specify them and the criteria for
correctly deciding such things. Consequently, whenever a problem situation
is characterised by such deep ignorance, or when a problem situation must
be resolved but the available resources (including time) are finite and insuffi-
cient for an optimal solution, to that extent the problem at hand can be
considered to be a wicked problem. This first condition is the most important;
we contend that it is a necessary condition for wickedness.
Complexity. Every aspect of our world is characterisable as interactions between
partially nested hierarchies of complex systems having multiple feedback and
feedforward loops where multiple interactions among systems typically have
far-reaching consequences across many functional levels, such interactions
causing others in cascades that spread in unpredictable, irreversible, history-
dependent ways throughout their domains. This complex-systems nature of the
world has two general kinds of consequences relevant here. (A) It will often be
impossible to disentangle the consequences of specific actions from those of other
co-occurring interactions. (B) The outcomes of processes are difficult to predict,
amplifying our ignorance and exacerbating the limits imposed by finite resources.
Normativity. Human values and norms can become inextricably intertwined
with problem formulation and problem resolution. Notoriously, values and
norms are often in conflict both between agents and even within an agent’s
normative commitments and require sufficient resolution through compro-
mise to permit a coherent and practicable problem resolution.
Each of these features poses a challenging aspect of the fundamental methodolog-
ical problem: how it is possible to act intelligently and responsibly in a world char-
acterised by deep limits on our problem-solving capacities? We contend that it is
the depth and extent of this methodological challenge that ultimately constitutes
the wickedness of a problem. The reduction to just three conditions produces a
much clearer concept of wickedness that, in turn, enables a sharply delineated crit-
ical comparison of design and science problems. To demonstrate that, we turn to
Rittel and Webber’s discussion of wickedness and show that the ten features iden-
tified by them can be reduced to the methodological consequences of the three
conditions we have proposed. Along the way we will show how scientific problems
fulfil both Rittel and Webber’s ten features and our three conditions.

1.1 Rittel and Webber’s ten wickedness-making features

i. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.

To illustrate what is at issue here for Rittel and Webber consider a brief to
design a commercial bank. On which among the huge number of alternative

686 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 design conceptions should one initially focus? Perhaps customers should be
whisked up to higher floors, excitingly in clear-sided capsules, for services
differentiated by floor. Or should the entire traditional edifice and its functions
instead be virtual, available in secure digital capsules? Perhaps a good coffee
shop or children’s play area should be incorporated? What would need to
be known to begin with each design, about human psychology and sociology,
engineering possibilities, city planning, the future of digital media, and so on?
There is a plenitude of potential design options, each of as yet unknown merit
but demanding open-ended backing investigations to assess, the whole set in a
world of finite time and resources but demanding a timely, workable design
response.

We might take the view that, while in principle all potential solutions are know-
able and mutually comparable, the complicatedness of design situations ren-
ders the best solution very difficult to discover in practice. Rittel and Webber
say about poverty, for instance, that it has many partial, context-dependent
causes and we simply don’t, and practically can’t, know enough about all,
and perhaps any, of them. In this ‘ignorance’ reading of the situation, underly-
ing our ignorance is presumably a tame or textbook problem, just one that re-
quires ideal knowledge to identify, but towards which we should try to move.
But focussing on that would be both a too-partial reading of Rittel and Webber
and, more importantly, a strategic mistake. For instance, one might try devel-
oping all options to see if the best one stands out, or try guessing which one is
the best one. But in the presence of substantial numbers of options and time
and resourcing constraints, the former is likely not possible and the latter likely
not successful. In short, such strategies are unlikely to pay off. Knowing of the
bare existence of a best bank design, even were there one, is of no practical use,
and may even be detrimental, to designers if they are ignorant of what it is. The
practical problem is how then to proceed.

The rational alternative is to cease directly pursuing the best solution and
begin a search for an accessible, at-least-satisfactory one, even if it is not the
best. And now we are already in the domain of a very different overall model
of design methodology. Here the way to proceed is to consider a few alterna-
tive proposals across a reasonable spectrum of options, each accompanied
with a proposed investigation, use of realistic resources, etc. and a rationale
as to the value and realism of the approach. There follows a cyclic process: af-
ter critical discussion, including of available knowledge and resources, there
will emerge a decision to initially pursue a very few (perhaps only one) option
to a next presentation stage and, after the results of that round are in, the
whole process can be repeated again and again, sometimes with the same op-
tions, sometimes with a suggestive new one added, until one or more at-least-
satisfactory designs emerge that also can be completed within the investigatory
knowledge and resources available. One of these can then be chosen to
execute.

Design & Wickedness 687

 This is a process of sifting through alternative further specifications of the
problem, and of the solution, looking for ones that ‘hang together’ and offer
opportunities and rewards to investigation. In fact, it is also a concomitant
search for an appropriate methodology for the joint problemesolution speci-
fication, since methods will change somewhat with the problemesolution, so a
joint problememethodesolution specification search is involved. The cycle of
repetitions of this process is then the process of improving the performance of
the solutions in the problememethodesolution couplings, through improving
our understanding of the main triadic options and their interrelations.7 Cf.
Rittel and Webber: “[the resolution of wicked problems involves] an argumen-
tative process in the course of which an image of the problem and of the solu-
tion emerges gradually among the participants, as a product of incessant
judgement, subjected to critical argument.” (p. 162)

This is certainly a different internal cognitive structure to the design process

from that for tame problems, where the problem is already fully and optimally
specified and the relevant information is then applied ‘algorithmically’ to
deduce the optimal design. The untamed process above is in fact just what
every design discussion identifies as the distinctive overall feature of the inter-
nal design process.8 It should not surprise that pragmatics, especially finitude
constraints, can and should affect method in this way. For instance, costebe-
nefiterisk analysis is often a useful decision tool; but however useful it is else-
where, anyone who has a hungry lion charging them and continues to use that
method to decide what to do, is irrational e instead ‘quick and dirty’ avoid-
ance heuristics are rationally to be preferred as method. The negotiation to
pursue design options above is more sophisticated; nonetheless, of necessity
it also uses heuristics.9

We have attended at length to wickedness feature #i because we wanted to

make the point that it identifies a process that is (i) normal for design and
everywhere recognised as distinctive of it, and (ii) derives just from the conse-
quences of finitude (including ignorance as a manifestation of epistemic fini-
tude) for rational method. It does not require any normative disagreements
among clients or authorities, nor any specifically social context, etc., to arise.
Instead it is a purely cognitive structure that frames any problem solving under
finitude constraints.

To make the point, notice that feature #i has an exact analogue in scientific
method itself. It occurs, e.g., whenever a given data set has two or more
different potential theoretical explanations (cf. design options) but limited
investigatory resources make it impractical to fully research every possibility.
It was, e.g., initially unclear whether chronic fatigue syndrome was caused by a
bacterium or virus, a fungus or mould, in each case perhaps deeply embedded
in tissue, or was due to a psycho-somatic condition, with any of these options
difficult and resource demanding to pursue. Then, just as with design, the issue

688 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 becomes which few of these possibilities is currently most worth pursuing and
in which specific forms. Various options will be developed in more detail, their
resource demands and risks analysed and their merits spelled out for consider-
ation. During that process more specific versions of the initial general problem
will be developed, some of them (e.g. the psycho-somatic option) perhaps
requiring a significant reformulation of both what the problem is and what
criteria a solution would need to meet. A critical debate will develop about
these options, the upshot being that one or two of them will be selected to pur-
sue, perhaps by individual laboratories, perhaps as cooperative ventures. After
the results of that round are in, the whole process can be repeated again and
again until an at-least-satisfactory explanation emerges within the investiga-
tory resources available. Strikingly, Rittel himself provides a graph of search
pathway options that is of this same kind and clearly applies directly to science
as well as design.10

It was Popper who famously pointed out that the foundations of science are
not anchored on the rock of proven truths but instead driven down into a
swamp of possibilities just deep enough to achieve sufficient stability to
continue research (Popper, 1980). It is not surprising that the same methodo-
logical process turns up in science also since, as noted above, it derives solely
from rationality in the face of finitude. In short, the cognitive differences here
between the cognitive processes of design and science are minimal and matters
of degree, not kind.

This commonality becomes still clearer whenever scientists venture into new
unexplored territories, e.g. from Newtonian into relativistic or quantum do-
mains, or where scientists are fundamentally re-evaluating previously explored
territory, e.g. re-exploring embryology in terms of cellular bio-synthetic path-
ways rather than earlier macro-physiological characterisations, in short when-
ever scientists are engaged in deep or revolutionary research. Faced with the
initial anomalous discrete spectral data that ultimately led to quantum theory,
scientists first tried various Newtonian and quasi-Newtonian approaches to
understanding the data, even to the point of giving up energy conservation
to preserve a general Newtonian conception, before standard quantum theory
was tentatively accepted. Not only is there the exploration of accessible op-
tions, there is also the question of appropriate methods. For instance, in the
transition from Newtonian to quantum mechanics, the Newtonian measuring
methods are revealed to carry small, ineliminable residual errors and comple-
mentary Newtonian measurements become mutually excluding in quantum
theory, governed by the uncertainty relations. Thus, as with design, it is neces-
sary to search for problemesolutionemethod options. To borrow from
Simon’s (1977) treatment of this situation, scientists will order the ill-
defined, ill-structured, situation by assuming a structure and then see whether
it promises to bring about a solution to the original problem. It is clear from all
this that the problems that scientists encounter are not tame problems which

Design & Wickedness 689

 only require assiduous and rigorous mathematical manipulation to solve;
rather, the problems they encounter are exactly as Rittel and Webber concep-
tualise the poverty problem. There is in this respect no inherent difference in
process between the realms of science and design.11

The only difference between science and design here is that in science these
problems and their resolution processes can be spread across many institutions
and individuals and slowly collectively evolve, whereas in design it is more
common for an individual or single agency to take on such investigations e
though there are also public tenders involving multiple agencies and there is
indirect common learning through adaptation of tertiary education curricula
and the like. These differences are not trivial to the overall, collective charac-
ters of design and science as cultural expressions, an issue we examine else-
where as part of considering the roles of norms in the two activities (Farrell
& Hooker, 2012b). The point here is that, whatever these differences, they
do not alter the cognitive design/research process involved.

This analysis places Rittel and Webber’s feature #i firmly under our first basic
wickedness feature, finitude. It is possible, however, that some readers e
perhaps taking off from the poverty example e would consider that the pri-
mary issue concerns normative conflict in design versus none in science. In
response we make three brief remarks: (i) even if normative diversity is
involved in the example of poverty, this reading is inappropriate because it
misses the main cognitive significance of feature #i, (ii) the interpretation still
falls under our three basic conditions, but now under normativity, and (iii) as
noted above, we treat normative issues elsewhere, where we argue that they do
not divide design and science in terms of their core cognitive process.

ii. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

One reason for this follows immediately from feature #i: since any given solu-
tion to a design problem has emerged as an at-least-satisfactory construct
given our finite resources, it follows that if given an increase in resources,
then we can always search problememethodesolution space more effectively
for more promising options and/or improve solution designs for the options
explored. Hence it is always possible to improve a given design solution.
This is an important cognitive feature of the design process in general, and
of wicked problem solutions in particular. But it is obviously equally true of
science as of design and for exactly the same reasons. It is always possible
to improve a given scientific solution. In both cases it lies in contrast to
tame problems where solutions are arrived at in a finite number of steps and
are complete.

But Rittel and Webber offer, not one, but three reasons for feature #ii, of
which that above is essentially the first. (Their version reads: “. the process

690 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 of solving the problem is identical with the process of understanding its na-
ture” (p. 162). In the absence of normative diversity, this comes down to the
fact of many possible problememethodesolution options to explore. This
conception dominates their discussion.) The second reason given is “. there
are no criteria for sufficient understanding”. If this is because we are ignorant
of how to formulate them until we better understand the field then it is another
aspect of the first reason, and one emphatically shared with science. Consider
Newton’s mechanics and the perihelion of Mercury; it was not until Maxwell
had formulated electro-magnetic theory and mathematicians and experimen-
talists had sharpened the conflict between it and mechanics that it was possible
for Einstein to formulate relativity theory as primarily a kinematical, not
dynamical, shift and provide a revolutionary explanation for the perihelion
rotation. This also shows that timing may not be only due to ‘local’ pragmatic
factors but can derive from our condition of historical development e just as
in design. Alternatively, Rittel and Webber could be taken as arguing that the
absence of a stopping rule derives from irresolvably competitive norm-based
selection of problememethodesolution options and the option-dependence
of solution criteria. Thus the first two reasons for feature #ii are reducible
to either finitude or normativity.

The third reason is “because there are no ends to the causal chains that link
interacting open systems” (p. 162). This is a separate issue where a planning
decision is envisaged as being applied in one system that is in mutual interac-
tion with several other systems. For instance, a modification of the transport
system of a city, such as installing lights or a new bridge, interacts with eco-
nomic decisions about costs of public versus private transport and with social
decisions about the safety and privacy of each. Rittel and Webber have in
mind that decisions within each of the latter, including responses to transport
design decisions, equally react back on the traffic flows within the transport
system, and so on in a never-ending flow of mutual responses. In these circum-
stances, they conclude, decision consequences in any such system will lack
well-defined boundaries and so there will also be no well-defined solution
criteria for transport problems.12 For the same reason, various problems
have scopes that overlap, so that no one of them can be tackled without
affecting all the others. A changed transport design will alter business and lei-
sure activities, socio-economic stratification and segregation, and thus the na-
ture and distribution of medical demand and criminal activity, and so on.

This third reason comes down to the fact that planners, and designers, deal
with complex systems. Our ignorance of the complex causal chains in such sys-
tems makes it exceedingly difficult to arrive at optimal solutions whereby we
can judge that the problem has been solved and we can stop further investiga-
tion. But this feature is clearly shared with science. Science has been addressing
the issue of complex systems for many decades now; for example, climate sci-
entists have developed sophisticated theories and methodologies that have

Design & Wickedness 691

 enabled an ever deepening understanding of the interacting open system which
is earth’s climate. However, we are still far from having a settled climate
science e and major discoveries are still being made, for example, the identi-
fication of the Indian Ocean Dipole little more than a decade ago e and it is
uncertain, at the moment, whether we would recognise a climate science
that was settled even if we had it. This reason leaves feature #ii firmly within
our condition two, complexity.

In conclusion, whichever of Rittel and Webber’s reasons we take for their

wickedness-making feature #ii, it reduces to one or another of our three con-
ditions, and fails to divide design from science.

iii. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad.

The wording chosen here is ambiguous. One reading is that solutions to

wicked problems are not exact and complete (e.g. optimal), but sufficiently
good-or-bad approximations to exact, complete solutions. In this case the
feature would have followed from feature #i and been explicable in terms of
finitude or complexity, or both. Moreover, it applies as equally to science as
design. Indeed, an immature science, including a mature science undergoing
revolutionary change, will have exactly the character that Rittel and Webber
ascribe to social planning: there is as yet no settled basis for paradigm exper-
iments, interventions will have unexpected consequences and practically
achievable tests will often have their validity or strength re-assessed as knowl-
edge develops.13 In these circumstances scientists commonly speak of theories
and tests being more or less good-or-bad, rather than true-or-false. That is
because the tracking of errors is at the fore. It is not until a mature, settled sci-
ence emerges with an established methodology and supporting technologies
that it is usual to speak of truth and falsity, and objectivity. The differences be-
tween immature and mature disciplines and design domains are important, but
they do not distinguish between science and design. Rather, they remind us
that in both mature sciences and mature design domains there have at least
been some once-wicked problems that have been resolved and transformed
into tame problems.

However, the focus of the text strongly suggests that the intended reading
should instead be along these lines: because of normative diversity in evalua-
tion, there are no agreed evaluation criteria, so solutions to wicked problems
are not correct or incorrect as judged by agreed evaluation criteria, but vari-
ously good-or-bad according to the norms being used. Various parties will
judge any proffered solution and their judgements “are likely to differ widely
to accord with their group or personal interests, their special value-sets, and
their ideological predilections.” (p. 163) If this is right, then this feature of
wickedness clearly falls under condition three, normativity. Either way feature
#iii is explained by one or another of our conditions.

692 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 iv. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.

This may be understood as a special case of feature #ii, third reason, where the
temporally extended consequences of decisions are confined to one system.
The response there applies here as well. Or it may be read as a version of
feature #ix (below) and our response there will apply here.

v. Every solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one-shot operation’; because there is

no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.

Despite some temptation to assume so, this is not simply another version of
feature #iii, or #iv. Instead, like feature #ii, third reason, it introduces yet
another additional, and significant, methodological consideration, path-
dependence, over and above those discussed under feature #i.

In Rittel and Webber’s words: “Whenever actions are effectively irreversible

and whenever the half-lives of the consequences are long, every trial counts.”
“. every implemented solution is consequential. It leaves “traces” that cannot
be undone. One cannot build a freeway to see how it works, and then easily
correct it after unsatisfactory performance.” (p. 163) For the kind of social
planning examples Rittel and Webber had in mind the trial-perturbed system
state will overall generally diverge increasingly over time from the unperturbed
system state.14 In the expressway case above, the changes in driving patterns
and attitudes (e.g. expectations of travel times), business planning and school
busing, etc. induced by the building of the expressway will continue to alter the
overall societal behaviour in ways that will typically drive it in a different di-
rection from that that would have been taken had the expressway not been
built.

In short, the developmental trajectory of the society, the particular sequence of

states it passes through over time, will have been altered. Developmental tra-
jectories of this sort are common, from societies and persons through to ecol-
ogies and organisms of all sorts to the earth geologically, and ultimately the
cosmos itself. For instance, as we know, a single traumatic event in childhood
can have permanent consequences for a person, setting them on a coping
course distinctive to their personality and resources that marks the whole of
their lives. Similarly for positive experiences, these often reinforce a tentative
behaviour or create an attraction to their circumstances that marks the rest of
life. In this way person’s lives are highly unique, no two people are alike. All
the kinds of systems mentioned above show strong context-sensitive or path-
dependent developmental trajectories of this sort.

The problems posed to methodology by context-sensitive developmental tra-

jectories derive primarily from their irreversibility and longevity, but also
from their uniqueness. Irreversibility combined with longevity means indeed

Design & Wickedness 693

 that no sequence of interventions are ever made under repeatable conditions, a
problem acknowledged under feature #ii, third reason. This need not in itself
be a problem if the impacts of past interventions can be measured and dis-
counted when evaluating later interventions. However, where interactive
complexity makes it impossible to separate effects this correction technique
cannot be exact but only produce approximations and sensitivity estimates
of the importance of residual uncertainties. All these latter methods were
developed in science where the same problems recur in the study of complex
systems from geology to ecology. These considerations clearly place this wick-
edness feature under complexity.15

The uniqueness of developmental trajectories to which context-sensitive tra-

jectories typically leads then poses additional methodological challenges
because it is evidently impossible to use past empirical data to inductively
predict future developmental states since future interrelationships will, ex hy-
pothesi, be unique and it is also impossible to generalise across groups of
such trajectories. Thus it is apparently impossible to design or plan in a
way that will reliably meet an individual’s, or a group’s, needs or wants.
But again we note that science faces these same problems whenever such
complex systems are studied. In response it employs three basic kinds of stra-
tegies. The first is to exploit repeated kinds of transitions. For instance,
although there is only one earth to use to study terrestrial geology (thereby
exacerbating the problem of generalising, one might judge) it undergoes
closely related transitions many times over, such as vulcanism, erosion and
continental drift. This allows these processes to be studied in the usual scien-
tific manner. The second is to exploit the underlying models of dynamic in-
teractions that physics and chemistry provide. Thus although rusting and
fire manifest rather differently they are both oxidation processes at molecular
level. This provides a fine fabric of established dynamical processes interrelat-
ing the developmental processes. Finally, third, it is possible nowadays to
construct complex-systems models of classes of unique path-dependent devel-
opmental trajectories that reveal the structure of possibilities for these sys-
tems and, through that, empirically identify small classes of trajectories
into which a particular trajectory falls and hence approximate that trajectory.
These methods do not entirely remove the uniqueness barrier but they do
substantially moderate it, to varying degrees in various fields e substantially
enough to establish the science of terrestrial geology (ironically) but to a
lesser degree in domains where individual variation swamps averages and sys-
tems have long-term, relatively inaccessible processes running, e.g. in human
psychology.

However interesting these problems may be in themselves, the relevant point

here is that science clearly faces these problems arising out of dealing with
complex systems in the same ways as design does. In conclusion, feature #v
is explicable in terms of condition two.

694 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 vi. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describ-
able) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible
operations that may be incorporated into the plan.

This feature of wickedness is just the issue of finitude discussed under feature
#i: “. normally, in the pursuit of a wicked planning problem, a host of poten-
tial solutions arises; and another host is never thought up. It is then a matter of
judgement whether one should try to enlarge the available set or not. And it is,
of course, a matter of judgment which of these solutions should be pursued
and implemented.” (p. 164)16 Just so. And exactly the same in science. Only
the puzzle-solving activities (Kuhn’s description) of a mature science will
look at all like Rittel and Webber’s portrayal of scientific research, and then
only insofar as it is not disturbed by hidden errors or incompatibilities arising
externally. An immature science e that is, either a science in a new domain or
one newly emerging from a revolution in an old domain e will not have an
enumerable set of potential solutions to problems, for this is what makes a
discipline ‘immature’. Nor will there be a well-described set of permissible
methods, these too will be hotly debated in an immature science. Thus imma-
ture science will have the character that Rittel and Webber ascribe to social
planning. This feature of wickedness is wholly explainable in terms of condi-
tion one.

vii. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.

“But by ‘essentially unique’ we mean that, despite long lists of similarities be-
tween a current problem and a previous one, there always might be an addi-
tional distinguishing property that is of overriding importance.” (p. 164)
Noting that in science, including engineering, the ideal suggested by classes
of differential equations is that of obtaining parametric characterisations of
classes of dynamics, Rittel and Webber point out that this becomes less
possible as complexity mounts. And we would add, especially in systems
whose behaviour is governed by many weak interactions rather than a few
strong ones and where there are many long-period, path-dependent processes
running. “In the more complex world of social policy planning, every situation
is likely to be one-of-a-kind. If we are right about that, the direct transference
of the physical-science and engineering thought ways into social policy might
be dysfunctional, i.e. positively harmful. “Solutions” might be applied to
seemingly familiar problems which are quite incompatible with them.” (p.
165) But while all this is true, the barriers should not be over-estimated; tech-
niques of the sort used in geo-physics (see feature #v above) mean that many
component interactions can be successfully generalised, at least to some extent,
and general models of complex systems still offer general insight into charac-
teristic kinds of dynamics with their concomitant shaping possibilities, e.g.
parametric shaping of a strange attractor despite the chaotic behaviour it sup-
ports, and so on.

Design & Wickedness 695

 These issues are another aspect associated with complex systems. The impor-
tant point for our purposes here is that, as under feature #ii, none of these con-
siderations divides science from design: these issues are equally true of
modelling (science) as of shaping (design) any complex system. For instance,
modelling science faces the problem that for systems sensitive to conditions
it is always possible that hitherto weak interactions making little difference
to overall system dynamics (and that might therefore be neglected to a good
approximation) can nonetheless, on entering a new sensitivity domain, become
a determining factor there. Making reasonable decisions as to what compro-
mises adequate modelling and design for a partially unknown system is a
part of the critical discussion process underlying pursuit of promising prob-
lememethodesolution possibilities discussed under feature #i. Thus feature
#vii is reducible to conditions one and two.

viii. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another

problem.

Rittel and Webber contend that “Removal of that cause [of the original prob-
lem] poses another problem of which the original problem is a ‘symptom’.” (p.
165) This feature can be interpreted in two broad ways. Firstly, it could be in-
terpreted as an unending progression, a progression that can be read either
‘horizontally’ or ‘vertically’. Reading it horizontally yields a regress of means
within method: a proposed solution to the initial problem (one that removes its
cause) involves bringing about condition X, as eliminating some form of crime
may in turn require providing police; but procuring X in turn requires bringing
about Y, as policing in turn has budgeting and planning consequences, and
procuring Y in turn ., and so on. This is true, but true in some degree of
any kind of problem, not just wicked ones. And certainly equally true of sci-
entific problems. Understanding hot plasmas requires the capacities to create
and contain gases at a million degrees, and instruments to probe their inte-
riors, but these in turn . Nor, if there were any qualms over claims the regress
is endless (which a reader may well have), would these qualms be any less
appropriate to science than to design. So this feature of wicked problems
will not divide science from design (or even wicked problems from most
others). It simply expresses another aspect of the finitude of any human situ-
ation (condition one).

Reading the progression vertically yields a regress of problems that become

ever more general. Returning to the crime example, eliminating some form
of crime may in turn be seen as part of a larger problem of alleviating poverty,
and this in turn seen as part of removing adverse living conditions, and so on.
This too is certainly a feature of practical design decisions e of any design de-
cision in degree, wicked or not e and equally a feature of scientific investiga-
tions. Understanding hot plasmas requires understanding in turn how ionised
gases interact internally, but this in turn requires understanding how electrons

696 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 and ions interact generally, and this in turn requires understanding how forces
behave at atomic scales and high temperatures, and in turn . In both the
crime and the plasma cases there are serious qualms over the claim that the
regress is endless, since in both cases we ascend in a few steps to very general
issues, beyond which further issues look more horizontally associated than
genuinely more generalised. Setting this aside, this vertical-regress feature of
wicked problems will also not divide science from design (or even wicked prob-
lems from most others). It simply expresses another aspect of the finitude of
any human situation (condition one).

However, Rittel and Webber do raise an interesting practical consequence of

the availability of several vertically ordered degrees of generality: which degree
of generality is best for formulating a given problem? “. the higher the level of
a problem’s formulation, the broader and more general it becomes: and the
more difficult it becomes to do something about it. On the other hand, one
should not try to cure symptoms: and therefore one should try to settle the
problem on as high a level as possible.” (p. 165) This seems right and, as Rittel
and Webber note, the issue is reinforced by the general unsatisfactoriness of
either extreme methodological policy: pursuing grandiose generalities (‘ho-
lism’) is likely to be self-defeating unless and until large amounts of smaller-
scale knowledge have been accumulated, while pursuing only the smallest
detail (‘incrementalism’) is equally likely to be self-defeating because ignored
higher-order processes may render the data insufficient for problem solving.
However their claim that “There is nothing like a natural level of a wicked
problem.” (p. 165) does not follow. Only the wrongly implied arbitrariness
of these decisions could support that inference. As more becomes known
about the relevant interacting processes at various generalities and super-
systems, decisions about what to include, and why, become sharper. Of course,
these issues are exactly the same whether it is explanation (science) or shaping
(design) that is involved and the preceding wording has been chosen to illus-
trate the point. Thus they too will not divide science from design (or even
wicked problems from most others), but again express another aspect of the
finitude of any human situation and the problems posed to problem-solving
by the interaction between our finitude and the complexity of the world.

The second broad interpretation follows from the following quote: “Thus
‘crime in the streets’ can be considered as a symptom of general moral decay,
or permissiveness, or deficient opportunity, or wealth, or poverty, or whatever
causal explanation you happen to like best. The level at which a problem is
settled depends upon the self-confidence of the analyst and cannot be decided
on logical grounds.” Here ‘happen’ and ‘like’ in “explanation you happen to
like best” implies that selection of explanations is arbitrary, whereas it is
not, though it may be characterised by ignorance, for either science or design.
However, looking past this loose language, Rittel and Webber could be
arguing that how we interpret a problem, and how it relates to other problems,

Design & Wickedness 697

 will depend upon our normative convictions. If this second interpretation is
the intended interpretation, then feature #viii reduces to the question of nor-
mativity. Thus under the first interpretation this feature is concerned with con-
ditions one and two, problem features clearly shared with science, and under
the second interpretation it reduces to condition three, which we contend also
does not separate design from science cognitively.

ix. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be ex-

plained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of
the problem’s resolution.

The wording of this feature encourages the belief that it is another version of
feature #i. However, and despite further confusing text,17 it seems clear that
Rittel and Webber’s intention is to argue that there is a looseness of connection
between evidence and explanation that can be exploited to defend any given
explanation from refutation while claiming supporting evidence for it. In sci-
ence, they assert, this does not happen, for if, under conditions C, hypothesis
H implies that evidence E occurs, and E doe not occur, then H is refuted. But
in design it is possible to argue that E did actually occur, or that intervening
processes independent of H prevented E from occurring, or that E is delayed
but will still occur, and so on. “In dealing with wicked problems, the modes of
reasoning used in the argument are much richer than those permissible in the
scientific discourse. Because of the essential uniqueness of the problem (see
Proposition 7 [feature #vii]) and lacking opportunity for rigorous experimen-
tation (see Proposition 5 [feature #v]), it is not possible to put H to a crucial
test.” (p. 166).

Is this then a dividing point between design and science? No, because the real
situation in science is exactly the opposite to that of the idealised logic machine
that Rittel and Webber here assume applies. Notoriously, it is also logically
possible in science to attempt to protect a hypothesis from refutation, and
through exactly the same kinds of responses as quoted above. Just this is the
point of the famous DuhemeQuine thesis, which holds e and for science in
general, not just wicked problems e that it is always possible to avoid refuta-
tion of a hypothesis in precisely these ways. It is for this reason that Karl
Popper, the great exponent of falsification in science, enjoined the methodo-
logical policy of testing hypotheses as severely as possible in an attempt to
falsify them e precisely because doing that was not logically guaranteed e
and considered it of the essence of taking a rational stance to enquiry. And
it was an attempt to show how a modicum of hypothesis-protection in the
face of apparently adverse evidence might nonetheless rationally sit with ulti-
mate falsification that Popper’s follower Imre Lakatos introduced the dual
model of a protected core or key hypothesis surrounded by a falsifiable belt
of auxiliary hypotheses. And this is still while trying to take a formal-logical
approach to science, rather than the more strategic conception of scientific

698 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 method we would advocate, where strategies of all these kinds are of the
essence, and choices of which to pursue and when at the heart of pursuing
knowledge rationally.18

This phenomenon of hypothesis-testing and possible refutation avoidance is

therefore common to both design and science. Moreover, the ultimate source
of this phenomenon derives from both the cognitive finitude of human beings
and from resource finitude. We cannot, in science, perform all possible exper-
iments, all at the same time, in order to clearly assign fault to one of the many
sub-systems potentially causing an unsuccessful experiment. Similarly, we
cannot, in design, implement all possible designs, all at the same time, in order
to see which one is optimal and which ones not.

However, as with many of their wickedness-making features, Rittel and Web-

ber’s claim can be interpreted in a different manner. Consider this quote: “.
People choose those explanations which are most plausible to them. Somewhat
but not much exaggerated, you might say that everybody picks that explana-
tion of a discrepancy which fits his intentions best and which conforms to the
action-prospects that are available to him. The analyst’s “world view” is the
strongest determining factor in explaining a discrepancy and, therefore, in
resolving a wicked problem.” (p. 166) It is possible to read some of this passage
conservatively, e.g. it is reasonable to choose plausible and practically acces-
sible alternatives to investigate. But fitting ‘intentions’ and ‘world views’ are
clearly intended to suggest that explanations, and attempted avoidance of dis-
crepancies to these explanations, are governed by normative principles that
cannot be brought into coherent structures, and differ widely in the commu-
nity. Once again we have two interpretations of Rittel and Webber’s text:
one, based upon finitude considerations (condition one) and the other focused
on normativity (condition three), and neither ultimately discriminating be-
tween design and science.

x. The planner has no right to be wrong.

“Planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate; the ef-
fects can matter a great deal to those people that are touched by those ac-
tions.” (p. 167) This wickedness-making feature is the only one of Rittel and
Webber’s ten features that doesn’t neatly fit into our three conditions for wick-
edness. However, we do not think that this undermines our analysis and this
for three reasons. Firstly, the idea that a planner/designer has no right to be
wrong only reasonably stretches to mastery of current knowledge and skills:
why should we hold someone responsible for consequences of which they,
and everyone else, were ignorant? Moreover, it is exactly the same for scien-
tists. A poorly constructed research programme wastes scarce resources,
may mislead scientists who rely on its data and conclusions, and its poor per-
formance contributes to having its approach, or even the whole domain,

Design & Wickedness 699

 evaluated as a poor research prospect, unfairly biassing future scientists. But,
again, that liability only reasonably stretches to mastery of current knowledge
and skills.

Secondly, the language employed undermines Rittel and Webber’s position,

since in feature #iii they claimed that solutions to wicked problems are not
true-or-false but good-or-bad. Now if a solution to a wicked problem is wrong,
in the sense of incorrect, then this is a blatant contradiction. However, if Rittel
and Webber intended to say that the planner has no right to ’bad’ solutions,
then the grounds for this evaluation would need to be spelled out and we
are most likely led back to our first response above.

Thirdly, it is unclear whether this feature really is wickedness-making. Un-

doubtedly there are consequences that follow from our actions, some horren-
dous e for example, Thalidomide e but this relates to the complex-systems
nature of the world, interacting with our finitely constrained actions and
knowledge, for which we should not be held responsible, as above for our first
reason. Additionally, even if planners and designers are held liable for the con-
sequences that follow from their plans/designs, it is hard to see why this makes
the problem wicked, except in that it amplifies, in the mind of the designer, the
wickedness encapsulated in the other features.

This concludes our discussion of Rittel and Webber’s ten wickedness-making

features. We have seen that nine out of the ten features are clearly reducible
to our proposed three conditions for wickedness-making; this alone contrib-
utes to a better understanding of wicked problems. Additionally, conditions
one and two are undoubtedly shared alike by both design and science and,
therefore, cannot form the basis of any argument discriminating design
from science. In this paper we have not specifically dealt with the third con-
dition, normativity. We do this in Farrell and Hooker (2012b) where we
argue that, like the other two conditions for wickedness, normativity plays
the same core cognitive roles in science as it does in design. In brief: The
original argument to the contrary hinged on claiming that design was
norm-driven while science was norm-free and thus the two were distinct
kinds of problem-solving activity. But of course this conception of science
assumes the empiricist logic-machine conception of scientific method; once
substitute the strategic conception of method and method too becomes
norm-driven (by epistemic norms). A subsequent position accepts that sci-
ence is norm-driven but claims that the norms in science are distinctively
cognitive in character whilst the values that operate in design are distinc-
tively conative or pragmatic in character, and therefore their core cognitive
processes are correspondingly different. Specifically, it is the intentional ac-
commodation of distinctively human desires and preferences in design, in
contrast to their intentional exclusion from science, that is held to distinguish
the two activities. But the differences between norms in design and science

700 Design Studies Vol 34 No. 6 November 2013

 are irrelevant to the issue of whether design and science share a core
cognitive process in common. It matters only that both processes take the
form of a strategic pursuit of value constrained by satisfying a collection
of norms.

2 Conclusion
There is a widely accepted argument distinguishing design from science
based upon the idea that science and design address different types of prob-
lems e wicked problems in the design case, and tame problems in the science
case. We have argued that this argument does not succeed. The wicked/tame
distinction is not an exclusive dichotomy; rather, it is a continuum upon
which all problems can be based, scientific and design alike. Along the
way we have shown what underlies Rittel and Webber’s 10 features of wick-
edness are just three conditions that generate some aspect of wickedness, to
some degree: finitude, complexity and normativity. The first two of these
concern such general conditions that they are easily seen to apply to both
design and science (and much else) leaving design and science to share the
common cognitive process to which they give rise. Upon examination the
third condition, normativity, also does not distinguish design from science,
but even if it did it would follow from our analysis here that the wickedness
or not of problems is no longer an independent argument for distinguishing
design from science.

This paper has focussed on the analysis of wickedness. What has been
learned is that design method, like scientific research method, is a product
of a common core cognitive process and management of pragmatic
complicating conditions, and that methodological procedures and skills
break into ways of progressing each of core and pragmatics and managing
their interactions. This structure can be exploited e for instance, by trans-
fer of problem-solving experience and strategies, whether across sub-
domains within design or between science and design, despite pragmatic
differences. This will, for example, facilitate (within limits) the abstraction
and transfer of engineering design theory and procedures, where well
structured characterisations of problems, procedures and pragmatics
have made possible sophisticated resolution structures, to other, more
pragmatically complicated fields.19 More generally it provides designers
a critical tool to widen their outlook and reflect on their practices and pro-
vides a common framework within which to pose and test design research
issues.

Acknowledgements
The insightful and encouraging comments of two anonymous referees and a
journal associate editor are gratefully acknowledged as contributing to a clear,
balanced and well-focussed paper.

Design & Wickedness 701

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Endnotes

1. In what follows all unattributed page references are to this paper.

2. Cross here employs one part of the Kuhnian terminology, puzzles, without
including the all-important complementary terminology, revolutions. This is
an oversight deriving from empiricist assumptions about scientific method
(see below) that persists despite a revolutionary tradition in design process ex-
tending from the early work of Schon (1963) (e.g. synthetic paintbrush) to
Crilly (2010).
3. The logic-machine conception of scientific problem solving has long been
known by scholars of science to have multiple defects. There have been
many attempts to patch it up but without success and it is reasonably assessed
as irretrievably flawed. For a summary of arguments see Hooker (2010).
4. See, e.g., Buchanan (1992), Chapman (2010), Hussain and Ritchey (2011),
Rooksby et al. (2006), Whelton and Ballard (2002) and references.
5. For instance, Conklin (2005) proposes to encapsulate the original 10
wicked features in just 6 and Chapman (2010) in 5, while Love (2013)
characterises wickedness in terms of functional time constraints and the
like, but all use, rather than assess, the nature of their characterisation.
However, reflection will show that their content can be subsumed under
our analysis here.
6. Kroes (2009), for example, additionally argues that (engineering) design i) has a
greater array of constraints, specifically social constraints, than does science,
and ii) is primarily characterised as employing means-end reasoning rather
than the ‘theoretical’ reasoning dominant in science. More detailed exposition
of our responses to these other arguments is pursued elsewhere as part of our
treatment of the roles of norms in the two domains see Farrell and Hooker
(2012b).
7. What Farrell and Hooker (2009) called exploring the methodological ‘possibil-
ity space’ for the problem, speaking of science.
8. See, e.g., discussions and references in Cross (2006), Goel (1995), Lawson
(2005), Rittel (2010, 3.3) and Zeisel (2005). Within these cyclic processes there

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 is scope for the use of themes, prototypes, sketches and correlative ‘middle-
stage’ design tools that have been widely noted, for exploring within and across
options and for helping generate new options.
9. See Hooker (2010) for the radical consequences of finitude for method. See also
Caroline Whitbeck on the ethics of engineering design decisions, Whitbeck
(1996) and www.onlineethics.org.
10. See Rittel (2010, Fig. 3.3.1, p. 191). Rittel claims that the process through
which designers traverse this net of possibilities is ‘beyond reason’ (p. 192).
However, examination of his discussion reveals that he assumes that reasoning
must be expressible as rules or equivalents that will ultimately permit its course
to be specified by ‘algorithms’, that is, the same formal reason that empiricism
assumes (among many). In the absence of such rules a-rational judgement for-
mation simply replaces reasoning. But between the horns of his rational/a-
rational dichotomy there lies non-formal rational judgement formation (see
e.g. Hooker, 2010).
11. This restores the role of Kuhnian revolutionary changes in science, to comple-
ment that of puzzle solving (cf. note 2). However, rather than there being a
puzzle/revolution dichotomy, as Kuhn conceived it, we conceive of it as a con-
tinuum in exactly the same manner as we do the tame/wicked distinction.
12. One suspects that Rittel and Webber assumed that in these circumstances no
solutions would ever have well- defined boundaries and solution criteria, but
this is not so. Provided that the effects and reactions across the interacting
systems damp out fast enough, or perhaps can be disentangled from others,
it will be possible to integrate their effects and then possible to provide so-
lution criteria, e.g. in terms of permissible bounds on perturbation of system
parameters across all the interacting systems from integrated effects. But
Rittel and Webber would be right to claim that this is currently often not
possible.
13. For a detailed account of this in the case of ape language research see Farrell
and Hooker (2009). A classic example of this is the state of chemistry before
the chemical revolution of the late 1700s. Because there was no formal notion
of what might constitute an element, what might constitute a chemical reac-
tion, what might constitute elemental purity, and so on, there was no
agreed-upon basis for fundamental advance in the field. Everything about
the nature of matter was controversial; for example, the idea that mass could
be an indicator of elemental constitution, a lynchpin of modern chemistry, was
mired in controversy and many leading scientists argued that mass was
completely irrelevant for understanding chemistry. Correspondingly, designers
exploring design potential in an immature or radically altered setting, will not
have a mature design possibility space developed, so there wont be specific
design alternatives that can indicate clearly the strengths or limitations of
whole classes of designs (paradigm experiments), design changes may have un-
expected consequences and the specificity or power with which two design
ideas are accepted as demonstrating differences in design value for classes of
design will often have to be re-assessed.
14. Technically, their requirements as enunciated above are necessary but are not
sufficient for what they intend. For that, the system state perturbed by each
trial has also to diverge sufficiently far and uniquely over time from that
with no trial intervention, otherwise the trials will eventually ‘wash out’,
despite irreversibility and temporally extended consequences.
15. They also apply to science itself in its historical development. For instance,
new observation and measurement technologies mostly grow out of new uses
for, and combinations of, old technologies that stretch their past capabilities,

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 thus generating technological developmental trajectories. For more along these
lines on the dynamics of science itself see Hooker (2009, IIIc, 2010, 4.3).
16. We take issue here with the implication hiding behind this quote from Rittel
and Webber: design has judgment, whereas science has . formal logic? This is
another instance of Rittel and Webber’s presumption that science is a logic ma-
chine. It is true that science employs many forms of formal-logical systems.
And it is true that formal systems of reasoning have as one of their aims to re-
move reliance on non-formal judgement, but in this they fail. It may take rela-
tively little judgement to check that formal procedure has been followed,
though not none, but to apply any such systems to the real world requires large
amounts of non-formal judgement: which aspects can be formalised?, using
which formalism?; which kinds of conclusions can be most valuably drawn
from this?, and how? (a non-trivial issue if proof construction is not formally
decidable, as it mostly is not), and so on. Moreover, the aspects that can be
formalised are always manifestly too poor for our cognitive needs. Finally,
properly disciplined non-formal reasoning is a much richer tool and deserves
to be considered the foundation of rationality. A machine can run a formal
system, but it takes real non-formal intelligence to invent that formal system
and show that it is appropriate to purpose. For further discussion see
Hooker (2010).
17. Early on Rittel and Webber say: “There is no rule or procedure to determine
the “correct” explanation [of a problem phenomenon] or combination of them.
The reason is that in dealing with wicked problems there are several more ways
of refuting a hypothesis than there are permissible in the sciences.” (p. 166) But
then they go on to examine ways of avoiding refutation of a hypothesis. If in
the quote ‘refuting’ were replaced by ‘confirming’ the passage would fit with
belonging under feature #i.
18. See, respectively, Harding (1976), Popper (1972, 1980), Lakatos (1970) and
Hooker (1995, 2009, 2010). When discussing feature #x (see below) Rittel
and Webber come close to citing Popper as supporting falsification as a policy.
19. See Gul, Gu, and Williams (2008), among many; cf. the broader, less struc-
tured categories of Blessing and Chakrabarti (2009) where cognitive/pragmatic
structures are not assumed. The advantage is akin to possessing fruitful species
concepts in biology that help structure and evaluate research.

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