Design Ability

What Designers Say The wish to design things is inherent in human beings, and design is not something that has always been regarded as needing special abilities. It is only with the emergence and growth of industrial societies that the ability to design has become regarded as a specialised talent. Although there is so much design activity going on in the world, the ways in which people design are actually rather poorly understood. It has been thought that perhaps many people possess design ability to some degree, but that only a few people have a particular design 'talent'. However, there is now a growing body of knowledge about the nature of designing, about design ability and how to develop it, and about the design process and how to improve it. When designers are asked to discuss their abilities, and to explain how they work, a few common themes emerge. One theme is the importance of creativity and intuition in design, even in engineering design. For example, the architect and engineering designer Jack Howe has said: I believe in intuition. I think that's the difference between a designer and an engineer... I make a distinction between engineers and engineering designers... An engineering designer is just as creative as any other sort of designer. Some rather similar comments have been made by the industrial designer Richard Stevens: A lot of engineering design is intuitive, based on subjective thinking. But an engineer is unhappy doing this. An engineer wants to test; test and measure. He's been brought up this way and he's unhappy if he can't prove something. Whereas an industrial designer.., is entirely happy making judgements which are intuitive. Engineering Design Methods Strategies for Product Design THIRD EDITION Nigel Cross The Open University, Mi/ton Keynes, UK JOHN WILEY & SONS, LTD Chichester- New York. Weinheim • Brisbane. Singapore. Toronto