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Informed Designing
In 1998, I began to describe in talks at the ITEA Conference
and elsewhere the notion of informed designing. Informed
designing was opposed to the kind of "intuitive designing"
that Christopher Alexander described as plaguing the
field of architecture. Decisions were made based on
instinct or "feel", rather than using such markers as
guides that then get tested through analysis and reason.
The following are some key criteria for doing informed
designing:
- Do research and gather information on relevant concepts
and cases
- Employ key concepts and cases in design planning
and use them to explain design thinking and decision-making
- Use effective designer strategies, select the appropriate
"next step" to take when designing (choosing from
among multiple design process models)
- Exhibit "professional vision" by focusing attention
on critical performance areas (fault detection, troubleshooting,
problem diagnosis
- Work in teams effectively: sharing ideas, delegating
roles and managing time
- Investigate and balance intuitions about the artifact
being designed with rational thinking of key principles
cases
- Take measured risks with ideas in creative ways
- Conduct experiments and use data-based insights in next
design iterations
- Be self-reflective about design work and the work of
others
Design decisions can be informed by the laws of science
and engineering, or by making analogies to cases similar
to the design of note. An informed designer should know
something about the following fields to do an effective
job: engineering science, product design, manufacturing,
marketing, and an expertise on the targeted user [Crismond,
1997]. Informed designers tend to gather data
related need to chose on set of criteria over another.
The Wright Brothers were informed by how designing their
airplane should be informed more by studying cases of
birds -- and dealing with issues of balance during flight
-- than designing an especially powerful engine, which
their main competitor was trying to create in order to
achieve self-powered flight.
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