On the self-construction of design problems

Extending the author’s recent work (2007) this paper advances the argument that, in significant ways, designers construct the problems they seek to solve. While it is generally taken as read that design problems are presented to designers by external agencies (clients) and with specific requirements (the brief), conventional understanding assumes that it is this problem that the designer ‘solves’, and that differences between solutions may be accounted for on the basis of differences in the skills/creativity of individual designers and/or of the plurality of different ‘satisficing’ solutions that design problems allow. While acknowledging both of these assertions this paper argues that it is not this ‘problem-as-given ’ that the designer ‘solves ’ but rather a substantially revised and personalized problem, the ‘problem-as-design-goal’, that both subsumes the original problem and imposes upon it a range of designer preferences, prejudices and expectations. Hence, starting from the same brief, different designers will necessarily produce different outcomes not merely on the basis of differential skill sets but because, in substantial ways, they are solving different problems. The paper briefly explores four key issues arising from this personal projection of self onto problem: (i) how such problematization not only determines the nature and suitability of the ‘new ’ problem but also informs and significantly constrains the nature of acceptable solutions and the criteria for such acceptability; (ii) hence how, contra the received view that problem definition and analysis precede solution attempts, problems and solutions are co-extensive and mutually informative; (iii) how such personal projection is often intuitive and unconscious, hence the role of education in revealing ideology, belief structures and theory commitment in designers; and (iv) how the designer’s vision is connected to and reconciled with the client’s vision and requirements