This study explored the ways that design has been experienced by professionals in a variety of disciplines. Transcripts from semi-structured interviews with professional designers about concrete design experiences, and reflections and meanings associated with those experiences, comprised the data that were analyzed through a phenomenographic lens. The results of this study included six qualitatively different ways that design has been experienced. Represented in a hierarchical form, from less comprehensive to more comprehensive, these categories of description included: Design is (1) evidence-based decision-making, (2) organized translation, (3) personal synthesis, (4) intentional progression, (5) directed creative exploration, and (6) freedom. This hierarchy emerged from considering the relationships between the categories of description. An additional outcome of this study was the generation of themes of expanding awareness, including the role of the problem, the role of ambiguity, the task endpoint, and the task outcome.
The results of this study inform the literature on design and have implications for design practice and education. Specifically, the results expand the ways that design can be viewed, building on and suggesting new lenses for describing and defining design. The results revealed areas of similarities and differences in the ways design is viewed by professionals, suggesting areas for which common ground can be built across disciplines, as well as highlighting differing ways of experiencing design that exist even within fields. The results also point to additional ways to view design expertise beyond the specific skills and technical knowledge that designers bring to tasks. The implications for design practice and education center on the idea of facilitating designers in being aware of their own ways of viewing and experiencing design as well supporting them in expanding their awareness to include how others view and experience design.
