"A Personal Design Philosophy". Paper for the I604 course "Design Theory" with Erik Stolterman. The presentation can be seen at http://www.slideshare.net/Tzek/my-design-philosophy.

1. A Personal
Design Philosophy
Omar Sosa Tzec
Design Theory I604.
Prof. Erik Stolterman
University of Indiana Bloomington
Fall 2012
design postulates and principles
If we listen to a statement affirming that design is everywhere, we would
make a quick reflection without externalizing any agreement or rejection
about this idea. Probably, it might be some room for doubt before answering.
Additionally, we could try to find a particular situation that would work as a
counterexample. This little exercise will probably cause to start recognizing
the plethora of artifacts surrounding us. All of them designed by humans.
Design results to be a familiar concept to everyone. However, it might be
complicated to define what design is. Commonly, we understand design as the
materialization of an idea. We center our attention on the characteristics of
the materials, and their quality in relation of what we understand as valuable
according our economical and social scales. As we can notice, this perspective
doesn’t take in count the process of design. It focuses on the result. Therefore,
this scope may be considered as limited.
We face design by using these artifacts in order to achieve a goal or to
accomplish a certain task. Under this consideration, we determine the quality
and value of design in terms of how functional the object is. In other words, it
is during the action of use when we can specify if an artifact is well designed
or not. Then, a communication bridge is established between the user and the
1. In word of Clarisse de
Souza (2005), the design designer1 during this stage. Because the needs a user have when facing a
works as the designer’s deputy. problem, the artifact of choice will reveal the designer’s understanding about
the situation and needs. At the same time, it will reveal how the designer
understands the user and the possible context of use, constrained by other
factors such as the designer’s knowledge itself, desires and aims from the client
and stakeholders, financial or technological limitations, among others. Thus,
this bridge allows also the transit of knowledge and hence, design relies in a
perspective that goes further than thinking in the artifact itself.
The user’s action by employing the artifact, her reactions, and how reality is
affected as consequence, constitute a particular experience within an interval
of time. Hence, design is about the conformation of stories. These stories
transit in the communication bridge as well. On one hand, the stories allow
the user to construct her understanding about what design is and how to
characterize it. In the other, stories work as a husk that encapsulates several
aspects and factors present when user appropriates the artifact herself, which
helps the designer to understand who is the user and what are her needs.
As we can notice, design, as a process, is neither linear nor static, and any
materialization of an idea doesn’t imply an end point.
Design, as those externalizations of ideas regarding the solution of problems
and fulfillment of the associated needs, is embedded in people’s everyday
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2. stories. Consequently, design is everywhere. Thus, we can synthesize the
concept of design as follows:
Design is about projecting solutions. First, it starts as a process,
both cognitive and personal, that requires engaging with people’s
needs given a certain problem in a certain context. In the middle,
it involves a communication process, with sharing of knowledge,
values, perspectives, desires, and aims.
At the end, it concludes with the externalization of an idea, either for
immediate use or as a basis for further design. Even more, within a
social context, any projected solution and its materialization involve the
conformation of stories in people’s everyday.
This human-centered definition allow us to formulate the following postulates
about design:
1. Design is about projecting solutions. If the idea for solving a
problem and helping to fulfill people’s need is not externalized and put
onto some physical form that conveys the solution, we cannot talk about
design and a design solution.
2. Design is a cognitive process. Besides the cognitive processes such
as memory, decision-making, reasoning, or learning, design also involves
a distributed cognition (Holland et al., 2000) due to its social nature, the
employment of external elements for its conduction, and the evolving
manner in which a design problem is setting through time.
3. Design is a personal process. Design is a transformational process
(Siegel & Stolterman, 2008) that occurs during the practice of design
itself. Every experience the designer lives affects the way a designer comes
up with a solution. The inner appreciation of people, society, culture,
live, dreams, and reality, in addition to the design practice, shape the
designer’s repertoire (Schön, 1987) and causes the evolution and maturity on
the designer’s judgments and character (Nelson & Stolterman, 2012). Of
course, this personal process becomes into a particular piece during the
distributed cognition while a design problem is being attacked. Especially,
when the designer is working in a team.
4. Design is about people’s needs. One fundamental consequence
of design is that any result affects people’s life. Thus, the designer seeks
for satisfying what people really needs. Nevertheless, we should remark
there are different levels of these needs. Depending on the level, the
repercussions of the design result change. In the lower levels, the design is
associated with a low profile claim and its scope is definitively narrowed.
Conversely, in the higher levels any design decision could have a big social
or economical impact.
5. Design is specific to a certain problem within a certain
context. Any design solution applies only to a certain context and profile
of users, and it looks for meeting the specific needs generated by the
design problem. Even more, the nature of this problem is characterized
as wicked (Rittel, 1973). Some solutions might look universal; nevertheless,
this implies the design problem is well delimited in such manner that the
solution, seen as an ultimate particular (Nelson & Stolterman, 2012),
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3. has the quality of being durable while the conditions associated with the
design problem remain equal.
6. Design is about communication. During all the design process,
there is an exchange of information between the designer, client,
stakeholders, and the potential user. Either from gathering information,
conducting research, sketching and prototyping, or testing solutions, the
design process entails a variety of communication instances through the
use of different media. Consequently, the designer should be prepared to
be a facilitator of information and understanding throughout the process,
regardless whether she is present or not. The latter implies that the design
solution works as the designer’s deputy (de Souza, 2005) in front of its user.
7. Design is about sharing knowledge. Connecting what we
mentioned so far, we distinguish that design is not merely about problem
solving. Whereas it is about communication, all the participants also
exchange knowledge that helps the design at the end in understanding how
to set the design problem and hence, to come up with the design solution.
The designer acts like a processor of this knowledge with the subsequent
intention of redirecting it to the user through the materialization of the
design solution.
8. Design is about sharing values, perspectives, desires, and
aims. During the design process the designer, client, and stakeholders
exchange their own perspectives about the problem, the user’s needs, and
other relevant matters. Additionally, the designer should act as the user’s
deputy in this case, by bringing into discussion the values, desires and aims
of the users in contrast with those from the client and stakeholders.
9. Design is equivalent to stories in people’s everyday. During
the use of the designed artifact, there is always a story in the user’s life.
The designer, as composer of experiences, incorporates her understanding
on narrative to figure how the design solutions can improve or enhance
people’s life in an effective and aesthetic fashion.
In turn, design should obey to the following core principles (Fig. 1):
1. Design must be human-centered. The first intention of any
designed artifact is to support people in the achievement of a certain goal
or the accomplishment of certain task.
2. Design must be functional. Any designed artifact should fulfill the
functional requirements that made its creation necessary.
3. Design must be aesthetic. Besides the functionality, both the
solution and the experience of use itself should transmit qualities that
cause heightened impressions in terms of beauty. Moreover, the designed
artifact should convey a dramatic impact to its users.
4. Design must empower communication. A designed artifact
allows its user to be capable of communicating her desire, attitude,
intentions, and anticipated results in regards with the problem she is
currently facing.
5. Design must empower understanding. Through the use of the
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4. designed artifact, the user can characterize the current state of the world
and reflect why she wants to change it, and what would the consequences
of such change. Furthermore, the designed artifact must facilitate the
reflection-on-action (Schön, 1987) once it has been used.
6. Design must empower transformation. The designed artifact
should allow the user to be capable to succeed in her intention of
transforming or changing the current state of reality.
7. Design must be thoughtful. The designed artifact has to be a
consequence of reasoning and reflection-in-action (Schön, 1987), in addition
of interiorizing and being sensitive to people, needs, reality and the
implications of creating and embedding the artificial (Simon, 1996) into
reality.
8. Design must be sustainable. The designed artifact considers the
limitation of resources available in the context of use, and it derives from
the optimization of these without compromising the fulfillment of user’s
needs.
9. Design must be useful. Within an interval of time, for the specific
context of use and the current problem, the designed artifact should be
considered as the best solution for meeting user’s needs.
10. Design must be rich. Every designed artifact should reveal
explicitly or implicitly all the core principles to the user. Either before,
during, or after the experience of use. The richness of a designed artifact
is independent of the form as such. It is more related with the subjective
impression the user has in regards with the intention of achieving a goal or
accomplishing a certain task.
Fig. 1. Core principles
of design.
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5. design process
Our design process can be seen as a line segment where one extreme
corresponds to the starting point, denominated engagement, and the other one
corresponds to the end of the deployment stage, denominated in turn as
embedment. Therefore, the design process starts in the realm of the ideas and
it ends with the incursion of an ultimate particular (Nelson & Stolterman, 2012)
into reality. Nevertheless, we cannot affirm that design solutions cover all the
space of reality as such. Instead, we consider that the designed artifacts live
in a subset of the artificial (Simon, 1996) –subset of reality itself– where the
materiality and the imaginary of a society overlap (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2. Design process.
The engagement is the first stage for our design process. In this stage
the designer faces the problem –and the client– for the very first time.
Consequently, the designer establishes her first framing about the problem.
Once this activity happened, the designer might accept or not to be involved.
If the designer decides to accept the challenge, this stage ends when the
designer has collected enough information from the client and other
resources to frame –and hence, to understand– the problem, in such manner
she is confident to start with the creativity stage.
Once the engagement stage has passed, the designer falls in a creation
loop that consists in three intertwined stages: ideation, exploration, and
materialization. The ideation and exploration correspond to the stages
when the designer starts using her imagination to figure about possible
scenarios related with vague ideas about possible solutions. By recalling cases
from the past, the designer tries to find some analogies or differences that help
her to understand the current situation. Together with these activities, the
designer employs three types of thinking: analytic, synthetic, and abductive (Kolko,
2011). Additionally, it is during the transition from the stage of exploration to
the stage of materialization, that the designer engages herself into reflection-in-
action (Schön, 1987). The materialization reaches its peak when the designer
comes up with a schema, sketch, or prototype. Once the intent of solution is
obtained, the designer backs to have a dialog with herself, either verbalizing
or not, but indeed having a reflection-on-action (Schön, 1987). Consequently,
the designer might or might not go back to repeat the loop depending on the
constraints at that particular time.
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6. Afterward the creation loop, the designer seeks for a refinement stage.
Depending on the user’s needs and the constraints of the problem, the
designer has to determine how complex and iterative this stage will be.
The refinement stage includes both types of evaluation, quantitative and
qualitative. In turn, the qualitative spectrum includes discussion sessions with
the clients or potential users, and critiques from colleagues and authorities
in the context where the problem is situated. As result of this stage, the
designer reframes the problem and then decides if she could go back to the
creation loop. Again, her decision will be influenced by all the constraints given
in the problem and the ability of the designer for managing time, client,
stakeholders, and resources. The duple of the creation loop-refinement can be
repeated many times if necessary. Of course, the latter will depend on the
same constraints and relevant factors mentioned before.
Finally, the stage of embedment comes. This stage implies the
administrative and logistic work to embed de design solution in its context
of use. Depending on what was agreed in the engagement stage, the designer
would be or not ahead of the full stage. In such occasions, the nature of the
designed artifact involves the client or any other stakeholder to be ahead of
this stage, particularly in the final steps. Sometimes in this stage, the designer
is required to communicate how the process was conducted, or to indicate
the characteristics and features of the solution. The latter for completing the
deployment or for functioning as reference for future design work. Once the
solution is embedded in the realm of the artificial within reality, the client
or another stakeholder can require going back to the refinement stage. This
happens when the conditions or boundaries of the design problem have
change in such manner that the way the designer framed the problem just
before the embedment is not working anymore. At this point the client or any
other stakeholder, and maybe the same designer, would determine depending
on the current conditions, if some modifications (i.e. going back to the duple
creative loop-refinement) or a complete redesign (i.e. going back to the engagement
stage) is needed.
stage activities and tasks
Table 1. Activities and task Engagement • Interview
for each stage of the design • Framing
process.
• Research
• Benchmarking
Creation Loop • Analysis
• Ideation • Synthesis
• Exploration • Abduction
•Materialization • Reflection
• Verbalizing
• Sketching
• Prototyping
Refinement • Revision
• Testing
• Discussion
• Critique
Embedment • Deployment
• Documentation
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7. design as a discourse and the design outcome
As we mentioned before, design is about communication. Moreover, because
the process is being constructed, determined, transmitted, and applied by
humans, it is in fact a communication process itself. The design seeks for
communicating a statement to reality by intentionally embedding a new
element in the real of the artificial (Simon, 1996). Hence, the designed
artifact is a consequence of a communication process.
On another hand, the designed artifact is needed but it wasn’t existent
before. It might result strange for its own user. Nevertheless, the designed
artifact must appeal its users to employ it for achieving that desired goal or
for accomplishing that crucial task. Under this perspective, the designer is a
speaker and the designed artifact is a discourse or speech. The rhetorical intention
of this discourse is that its user takes action on transforming reality through the use of
the artificial. Consequently, each designed artifact can be seen as speech that
results from combining the three modes of appeal (Ehses, 1989) that the art
of rhetoric employs: logos, ethos, and pathos (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3. The design as dis-
course or speech pondered
by the rhetorical modes of
appeal.
The logos includes all the logical and functional considerations and
understanding the designer has in relation with the design problem. The
ethos corresponds to all the designerly qualities that can be attributed to the
artifact, and they are more related with the result (i.e. the form). These
qualities are closely linked to what the designer considers as good design in
terms of form, and what is needed for achieving that result.
The pathos is about everything attributed to the designed artifact that
facilitates an emotional connection between the artifact and its user.
Moreover, this connection involves transformation. On one side, the designed
artifact transforms the user’s close reality by providing certain characteristics
that engage this user into an aesthetical experience. On the other, the
user transforms the meaning of the designed artifact by making it hers.
Customization is the common manifestation of this transformation in this
direction. As consequence, the designed artifact is not another cold, abstract,
or fuzzy element in the realm of the artificial. It becomes part of some
personal identity.
The designer’s purpose is to equipoise the weight of logos, ethos, and pathos
within the designed artifact. The weighing that will characterize the designed
artifact depends on the designer’s character and judgments (Nelson & Stolterman,
2012) in combination with her design competency sets (Nelson & Stolterman,
2012) at the time when she faces the design problem. Conceptually, the
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8. design competency sets –the mindset, knowledge set, skill set, and tool set–
encapsulates the designer’s discourse (Fig. 4) in order to constitute the design outcome.
Fig. 4. The design compe-
tency sets encapsulating the
design discourse (artifact).
Finally, we should remark the design outcome under this conceptual vision
based on rhetoric, embraces all the previous ideas mentioned previously. This
outcome is dogmatically taken as a result of following the stages of engagement,
ideation, exploration, materialization, refinement, and embedment. In turn, this process
fosters the accomplishment of the ten design principles introduced before.
Therefore, the design outcome can be perceive as a rich and complex
communication unit –a discourse that appeals for taking action– that conveys
both the principles and competences of the designer within (Fig. 5). Even
more, the characteristics of the design problem –time, context, people, and
all the constraints– make the design outcome unique and unrepeatable. This
communication unit is indeed an ultimate particular (Nelson & Stolterman,
2012) that is valid, valuable, and appreciated, depending on all the other
materialized elements that reflect the humankind’s imaginary and materiality,
all of them in the realm of the artificial, all of them in the realm of those
things that are intentionally created to change the reality.
Fig. 5. The design outcome
as an ultimate particular em-
beded into the realm of the
artificial, which carries the
persuasive discourse from
the designer and the core
principles of design.
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9. references
De Souza, C. S. (2005). The semiotic engineering of human-computer interaction.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Ehses, H. H. (1989). Design and rhetoric: An analysis of theatre posters. Design
Division, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.
Hollan, J., Hutchins, E., & Kirsh, D. (2000). Distributed cognition: toward a
new foundation for human-computer interaction research. ACM Transactions
on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 7(2), 174-196.
Kolko, J. (2011). Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Methods
and Theory of Synthesis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nelson, H. G., & Stolterman, E. (2012). The Design Way: Intentional Change in an
Unpredictable World. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Rittel, Horst W. J., and Webber, Melvin M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general
theory of planning. Policy Sciences. 4 (2), 155-169.
Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Siegel, M. A., & Stolterman, E. (2008). Metamorphosis: Transforming Non-
designers into Designers. In Undisciplined! Design Research Society Conference 2008.
Retrieved from http://shura.shu.ac.uk/449
Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge: MIT press.
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