What is a designer?

  1. Design
    1. previsualization
    2. iteration
    3. judgement
    4. action
    5. implementation
    6. planning
    7. actualization

Design is a plan for changing existing situations into preferred ones. It is a way to give shape to ideas, objects, spaces, situations and interactions. It is the intentional shaping of these things, as such it is the opposite of accident. Design is an iterative methodology that employs step-wise refinement. It employs both the use of intuition and reason in its decision making process. It tests both through critical reflection. Design is large enough to embrace both the subjective and objective stances. A designer seeks to validate intuition by receiving feedback from voices other than the self. Design as an activity aspires to be useful. Useful to whom — and for what end — are open questions. The practices of design attempt to address problem identification and problem (re)solution — or mitigation — as part of the use value of those practices. The solutions and mitigations ought to be significant enough to be meaningful to someone in some context at some time.