From the Editor in Chief INTUITIONS IN HUMAN–TECHNOLOGY INTERACTION DESIGN

While science is interested in how things are, design concerns more how things should be in the world. While both focus on the common the pursuit of improving the quality of human life, they are different in many respects. One of the differences is the way intuition is applied. Here, the word intuition has a specific meaning: It refers to subconscious foundations of thinking and thoughts. In science, grounds and arguments are key. Empirical observations are made in a controlled and methodical manner to give as much certainty as possible to the facts. Nevertheless, full certainty can never be reached (Nagel, 1961; Saariluoma, 1997). Moreover, it is easy take something as it is without even paying attention to it (Saariluoma, 1997; Wittgenstein 1969). These tacit and barely explicated foundations of scientific thinking are called intuitions. Intuition is not only about empirical work, but also is involved in mathematical thinking. Euclid, for example, assumed that one line, at most, can be drawn through any point not on a given line parallel to the given line in a plane. However, by giving up this assumption, mathematicians are able to create nonEuclidian geometries. This means that Euclid’s idea, apparently very true under given assumptions, was just an intuition. In other situations, another intuition could be used. Similarly, hundreds of years later, behaviorists used to thin