Design science

Systematic and rational approach to designing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Design science refers to a scientific, i.e. rational and systematic, approach to designing. An early concept of design science was introduced in 1957 by R. Buckminster Fuller^[1]^[2] who defined it as a systematic form of designing^[3] which he applied especially in innovative engineering design. The concept has been more broadly defined by the Design Science journal^[4] as “quantitative and qualitative research in the creation of artifacts and systems, and their embedding in our physical, virtual, psychological, economic, and social environment”.

Design-science relationship

There has been recurrent concern to differentiate design from science.^[5]^[6]^[7] Nigel Cross differentiated between scientific design, design science and a science of design.^[8] A science of design (the scientific study of design) does not require or assume that the acts of designing are themselves scientific, and an increasing number of research programs take this view.^[9] To some extent the two uses of the term design science (systematic designing and the study of designing) have co-mingled to the point where there can be some confusion, and design science sometimes may be referred to either as meaning a science of design or design as a science.

A science of design

Herbert A. Simon's The Sciences of the Artificial,^[10] first published in 1969, built on previous developments and motivated the further development of systematic and formalized design methodologies relevant to many design disciplines, for example architecture, engineering, urban planning, computer science, and management studies.^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16] Simon's ideas about the science of design also encouraged the development of design research and the scientific study of designing.^[17]

Design as a science

The design-science relationship continues to be debated^[18]^[19] and there continue to be many efforts to reframe or reform design as science. For example, the axiomatic theory of design by Suh^[20] presents a domain independent theory that can explain or prescribe the design process. The Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) ontology by Gero,^[21]^[22] presenting a domain independent ontology of design and designing, is another example. There have also been many domain-specific developments of design science, for example in architectural design,^[23] product design^[24] and information systems design.^[25]^[26]

Design science in information systems

There has been a particular emphasis on design as a science within information systems. Hevner and Chatterjee provide a reference on design science research (DSR) in Information Systems,^[25] including a selection of papers from the DESRIST conferences, a look at key principles of DSR, and the integration of action research with design research. Hevner et al. provide a set of seven guidelines which help information systems researchers conduct, evaluate and present design-science research.^[27] The seven guidelines address design as an artifact, problem relevance, design evaluation, research contributions, research rigor, design as a search process, and research communication. Later extensions of the design science research approach detail how design and research problems can be decomposed rationally by means of nested problem solving.^[28]

In 2010, 122 German professors promoted design science in information system research by signing a memorandum^[29] subsequently submitted in English to the European Journal of Information Systems.^[30] In the same issue the then Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS) Rickard Baskerville, along with the then Editor-in-Chief of the Information Systems Research (ISR) Vallabh Sambamurthy, with the then Editor-in-Chief of Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ) Detmar Straub, and the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS) Kalle Lyytinen together authored a rebuttal ^[31] to some of the claims made in the memorandum regarding bias against DSR.

References

[1]
Fuller, R. Buckminster (1957). "A Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science". Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. 34. Retrieved 2016-09-14 – via Google Books.
[2]
Fuller, R. Buckminster (1957). "Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science". Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal. 34 (9). J. F. Sullivan: 357–361. hdl:10222/74680.
[3]
Fuller, R. Buckminster. "Fuller on Design Science". Buckminster Fuller Institute. Archived from the original on 2021-10-23. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
[4]
"Design Science | Cambridge Core".
[5]
Gregory, Sydney (1966). The Design Method. UK: Butterworth.
[6]
Cross; Naughton, Walker (1981). "Design method and scientific method". 2 (4). Design Studies: 195–201. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
[7]
Willem (1990). "Design and Science". Design Studies. 11 (1). Butterworth and Co.: 43–47. doi:10.1016/0142-694X(90)90013-3. S2CID 108568620.
[8]
Cross (2001). "Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline versus Design Science" (PDF). Design Issues. 17 (3): 49–55. doi:10.1162/074793601750357196. S2CID 17912382.
[9]
Gero (2004). The PhD Program in Design Science at the University of Sydney, Development and Prospects of PhD Programme in Design Science Education. Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan.
[10]
Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press.
[11]
Baldwin; Clarke (2000). Design Rules, Vol. 1: The Power of Modularity. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-02466-2.
[12]
Banathy (1996). Designing Social Systems in a Changing World. Plenum, New York. ISBN 978-0-306-45251-2.
[13]
Long; Dowell (1998). Conceptions of the discipline of HCI: Craft, applied science, and engineering. Cambridge University Press.
[14]
Romme, A. Georges L. (October 2003). "Making a Difference: Organization as Design". Organization Science. 14 (5): 558–573. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.5.558.16769.
[15]
Van Aken (2004). "Management research based on the paradigm of the design sciences: The quest for field-tested and grounded technological Rules". Journal of Management Studies.
[16]
Warfield (1990). "A Science of Generic Design". Intersystems Publishers. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
[17]
Cross, Nigel (2007). "Forty years of design research". Design Studies. 28 (1): 1–4. doi:10.1016/j.destud.2006.11.004.
[18]
Farrell, R. and C. Hooker (2012) 'The Simon—Kroes model of technical artifacts and the distinction between science and design', Design Studies, 33 (5) pp. 480-495 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.05.001
[19]
Galle, P. and P. Kroes (2014) 'Science and design. Identical twins?' Design Studies, 35 (3) pp. 201-231 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2013.12.002
[20]
Suh (1990). The Axiomatic Theory of Design. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504345-7.
[21]
Gero, John (1990). "Design prototypes: a knowledge representation schema for design". AI Magazine. 11 (4): 26. doi:10.1609/aimag.v11i4.854. S2CID 11350025.
[22]
Gero (2004). "The situated function-behaviour-structure framework". Design Studies. 25 (4). Butterworth and Co.: 373–391. doi:10.1016/j.destud.2003.10.010.
[23]
Aburamadan, Rania; Trillo, Claudia (March 2020). "Applying design science approach to architectural design development". Frontiers of Architectural Research. 9 (1): 216–235. doi:10.1016/j.foar.2019.07.008.
[24]
Zeng, Y.; Gu, P. (August 1999). "A science-based approach to product design theory Part I: formulation and formalization of design process". Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing. 15 (4): 331–339. doi:10.1016/S0736-5845(99)00028-9.
[25]
Hevner; Chatterjee (2010). Design Research in Information Systems. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4419-5652-1.
[26]
Aparicio, J.T.; Aparicio, M.; Costa, C.J. (2023). "Design Science in Information Systems and Computing". In Anwar, S.; Ullah, A.; Rocha, Á.; Sousa, M.J. (eds.). Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Technology and Applications. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems. Vol. 614. Springer, Singapore. doi:10.1007/978-981-19-9331-2_35.
[27]
Hevner; Salvatore T. March; Jinsoo Park; Sudha Ram (2004). "Design science in information systems research". MIS Quarterly. 28 (1): 75–105. doi:10.2307/25148625. JSTOR 25148625.
[28]
Wieringa (2009). Design Science as nested problem solving. 4th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology.
[29]
Österle, H., Becker, J., Frank, U., Hess, T., Karagiannis, D., Krcmar, H., Loos, P., Mertens, P., Oberweis, A. and Sinz, E.J. (2010). "Memorandum zur gestaltungsorientierten Wirtschaftsinformatik". Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung. 62 (6): 664–672.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
[30]
Österle, Hubert; Becker, Jörg; Frank, Ulrich; Hess, Thomas; Karagiannis, Dimitris; Krcmar, Helmut; Loos, Peter; Mertens, Peter; Oberweis, Andreas; Sinz, Elmar J (January 2011). "Memorandum on design-oriented information systems research". European Journal of Information Systems. 20 (1): 7–10. doi:10.1057/ejis.2010.55. S2CID 3471461.
[31]
Baskerville, Richard; Lyytinen, Kalle; Sambamurthy, Vallabh; Straub, Detmar (January 2011). "A response to the design-oriented information systems research memorandum". European Journal of Information Systems. 20 (1): 11–15. doi:10.1057/ejis.2010.56. S2CID 16653089.