The Semantic Turn - Towards A Science For Design

Towards A Science For Design

In 1969, Nobel laureate Herbert Simon called for a science of the artificial. Natural scientists, he argued, are concerned with what exists, whereas designers are concerned with what should be and how to achieve it. His conception of design was shaped by rational decision theory and early conceptions of computational logic, hence limited largely to technology-centered design. Krippendorff added the following contrasts to Simon’s:

• The natural sciences limit themselves to theorizing past regularities from existing data. They do not see scientists as change agents. Any science for design must concern itself with how designers can change existing regularities, overcome contingencies that cause recurring problems, and make a difference in the lives of present stakeholders or future communities. Designers do not produce theories but propose unprecedented artifacts, new practices, and narratives that must be realized in a network of stakeholders, which are actors in their own interest. The science for design cannot be about design or of design, which are pursued from outside the design community. It must provide practical and intellectual support of design by being for or in the service of design activity. In support of change that does not come naturally, it must also provide the conceptualizations needed to hold designers accountable for how their proposals affect future contingencies.
• The natural sciences privilege causal explanations, which rule out that their objects can understand how they are conceptualized, theorized, and studied. A science for human-centered design privileges the meanings (conceptions, explanations, and motivations) that knowledgeable users and stakeholders of a design can bring to it. It entails a reflexive kind of understanding unfamiliar in the natural sciences.
• As detached observers of their objects, natural scientists can afford to celebrate abstract and general theories. Designers, by contrast, must be concerned with all necessary details of their design. No technology works in the abstract. Even social artifacts need to be understood and enacted by their constituents. A design is always a proposal to other stakeholders who may contribute to a design or oppose its realization. Theories in the natural sciences do not affect what they theorize, but designs must enroll others into what they are proposing, treat them as intelligent agents, or will not come to fruition.
• In the natural sciences, research consists of gathering date or objective facts in support of theories about these data. Predictive theories assume the status quo (the continuation) of the phenomena they theorize. In the science for design, research means searching for previously unrecognized variables and proposing realistic paths into desirable futures. Design, to the extent it is innovative, may well break with past theories, overcome popular convictions, and challenge stubborn beliefs in a history-determined future. Fundamentally, past observations can never prove the validity of truly innovative designs.

A science for design makes three contributions to design: