What Does it Mean to Design? A Qualitative Investigation of Design Professionals' Experiences

TLDR

Design is essential to engineering and prepares future practice. The study seeks to uncover how designers from engineering and other disciplines conceptualize design and how these conceptions shape their design approaches, with implications for training future engineers to collaborate across fields. The authors used phenomenographic interviews with 20 practicing designers to map variations in design experience and understanding. The study identified six distinct lenses of design experience—evidence‑based decision‑making, organized translation, personal synthesis, intentional progression, directed creative exploration, and freedom—highlighting how design skills converge into approaches and suggesting reflection practices to build common ground.

Abstract

B ackground Design is essential to the engineering profession and plays a crucial role in preparation for future practice. Research investigating variations of how professional designers experience, give meaning to, and approach design can inform the ways we characterize, assess, and facilitate design learning. This may also have significant implications for preparing future engineering professionals to collaborate within and across disciplines. P urpose (H ypothesis ) The goal of the study was to reveal and investigate critical differences in how designers from within and outside of engineering disciplines understand what it means to design, and how those understandings are evident in their approaches to and progression through design work. D esign /M ethod A qualitative research approach called phenomenography was used to investigate critical variations in how individuals experience and understand design. Twenty practicing designers were interviewed regarding their design experiences, how they approach design, and the ways they understand design. C onclusions Six qualitatively distinct lenses on how individuals across disciplines experience and come to understand design emerged, comprising a phenomenographic “outcome space.” These include design as (1) evidencebased decision‐making, (2) organized translation, (3) personal synthesis, (4) intentional progression, (5) directed creative exploration, and (6) freedom. Theoretical implications include an understanding of how design skills and knowledge come together to form a design approach, while practical implications emphasize structuring variation‐based reflection, which can facilitate common ground as a result of recognizing differ “design lenses.”