Lawson B. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified

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How Designers Think

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How Designers Think

The Design Process Demystified

Fourth edition

Bryan Lawson

AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD

PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO

Architectural Press is an imprint of Elsevier

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Architectural Press is an imprint of Elsevier

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First published 1980

Paperback edition 1983

Reprinted 1986, 1988

Second edition 1990

Reprinted 1991, 1994

Third edition 1997

Reprinted 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005

Fourth edition 2005

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Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgements xi

Part One What is Design?

1 Introduction 3

2 The changing role of the designer 17

3 Route maps of the design process 31

Part Two Problems and Solutions

4 The components of design problems 53

5 Measurement, criteria and judgement in design 63

6 A model of design problems 83

7 Problems, solutions and the design process 112

Part Three Design Thinking

8 Types and styles of thinking 129

9 Creative thinking 145

10 Guiding principles 159

11 Design strategies 181

12 Design tactics 200

13 Design traps 220

14 Designing with others 233

15 Design as conversation and perception 265

16 Towards a model of designing 287

Bibliography 305

Index 313

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Preface

This book now has far too long a history for my liking. It is frightening

to think that it was first published now nearly a quarter of a century

ago. It has been in continuous print ever since and many people

have been kind enough to say how it has helped them with their

studies, research or just developing their design process. Needless

to say there are many others who have been rather more critical of

some of the ideas and most of their arguments have been taken into

account as the book has progressed through previous editions to this

fourth one.

The book was not originally intended to be prescriptive and that

continues to be the case. It is an attempt to draw together much of

what I know about designing. That understanding has, of course,

come from many years’ research. But this understanding also

comes from teaching designers from a wide range of backgrounds.

I have taught students of architecture, interior design, product and

industrial design, urban design and town planning, landscape,

graphics as well as those who develop virtual worlds such as web-

sites and animated films. I have also taught in the areas of

ergonomics, systems design and computer programming. These

students have repeatedly amused, surprised and entertained me.

They have always taught me new things and occasionally aston-

ished me. That they do not realise some things are thought to be

difficult is often the charm and advantage of such novice students

and every now and then they show that it is possible to make the

complex simple and to resolve the intractable. This is why design is

such a drug, so fascinating and yet of course so frequently frustrat-

ing and infuriating. I have been privileged to meet many wonderful

designers, some of them very well known and others less so. We

have discussed the ideas in this book. Often highly successful

designers warn me at the start of these discussions that they can

more easily describe their designs than their processes. Actually,

it usually turns out that they can say a great deal more about their

processes than they had previously realised they could. It may

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seem odd to some readers that I say relatively little about the fin-

ished work of some of these successful designers. The fact is that

much more has been written about their designs than their

processes so I make no apology for saying very little about product

here and concentrating on process.

If I were to start writing this book from scratch now I would prob-

ably do it differently. Since I first published this book I have written

two others on related matters, Design in Mind and What Designers

Know. The latter is actually a companion book to this one. I have

revised this fourth edition in the light of more recent research but

also in the knowledge that What Designers Know is now also pub-

lished. Effectively both books taken together represent my latest

thinking. This fourth edition has two totally new chapters at the

end. The chapters in the third edition on designing with drawings

and designing with computers have been removed. Both of those

essentially looked at the way design knowledge is transferred

between the human mind and some external representation. The

main ideas that grow out of that study can now be found in a much

more developed form in What Designers Know. The first new

chapter here discusses the idea of design as conversation. Not

only has this view of design grown in popularity over the time this

book has been in print, but it now offers a way of thinking about

many of the important issues concerning the ways the designers

work in teams, with drawings and with computers. The second new

chapter rather rashly tries to summarise the range of activities that

I believe make up the design process. It also incorporates and

summarises some of the lessons only recently available to us about

how really expert designers work and how this might be different

from the way novice designers work.

There are therefore now three points of summary in the book.

The model of design problems which is developed in Chapter 6,

the intermediate conclusions of Chapter 7 and the final summary

of design activities in Chapter 16. I very much doubt that this is the

end of the story. I am sure that many people will tell me that it is

not and that we shall continue to have the same interesting and

fascinating debates that I have been lucky to be part of for so

many years.

I have researched the design process for over four decades now

and met with most of those who contribute significantly and

repeatedly to the field and I have greatly benefited from discussion

with all the people involved. The Design Thinking Research

Symposia and the Creativity and Cognition Conferences have

offered particular inspirations. I have supervised many research

PREFACE

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students and benefited from collaborating with them. I am greatly

indebted to all those who have helped me to form these fumbling

ideas as we grope towards an understanding of that most magical

of all human cognitive endeavours, designing.

Bryan Lawson

PREFACE

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