Five Design Characteristics
Three Elementary Activities
- The complex activity called “designing”interconnects three constituent activities: imaging, presenting,and testing/evaluation.
Two Types of Information
- Information used in designing tends to be useful in two ways: as a heuristic catalyst for imaging and as a body of knowledge for testing.
Shifting Visions of Final Product
- Designers continually modify predictions about their final result in response to new information and insight. The design process is thus a series of conceptual shifts or creative leaps.
Toward a Domain of Acceptable Responses
- Designers aim to reach one acceptable response within a range of possible solutions. This domain of acceptance is measured largely by how well a product is adapted to its environment and how coherent constituent parts of the product are with one another.
Development through Linked Cycles: A Spiral Metaphor
- Conceptual shifts and product development in design occur as the result of repeated, iterative movement through the three elementary design activities.