This book traces the development of a personal research programme over a
period of many years. The starting point for the programme was a
realisation that research in design seemed to have no clear goal of what
it was trying to achieve. A key insight for me was to realise that if we
wanted to develop a robust, independent discipline of design (rather
than let design be subsumed within paradigms of science or the arts),
then we had to be much more articulate about the particular nature of
design activity, design behaviour and design cognition. We had to build
a network of arguments and evidence for 'designerly ways of knowing'.
The research programme has included some empirical, laboratory-based
work, but has also included theoretical reflection, and attempts to
review and synthesise the work of other researchers. I have reported
this work at various times and in various places - in lectures,
conference presentations and journal papers. In this book I have brought
together a selected series of these reports, trying to trace a coherent
thread, and to lay out some of the network of arguments and evidence
referred to above. My goal has been to understand how designers think,
or the nature of design expertise, trying to establish its particular
strengths and weaknesses, and giving credit where it might be due for
design cognition as an essential aspect of human intelligence.
