Design as a Social Process: Bodies, Brains and Social Aspects of Designing

Abstract

This paper focuses on theory making about 'design' and 'social process'. Building sound extensible theories about design and social process is important because of the essential roles that design teams, as social organisations, play in innovation and knowledge creation processes. Developed and developing countries alike regard these innovation and knowledge creation processes and outcomes as a key to their economic and social futures. The paper explores 'design as a social process' in terms of building theory. It asks which concepts and theories in this area make most epistemological sense. The ubiquitous nature of designing means that a lack of coherence between theories about 'design as a social process' and theories and research findings of other disciplines is likely to be problematic. The paper focuses on identifying conceptual positions that are epistemologically more satisfactory in terms of integrating theories about designing with theories of other disciplines. It draws attention to the need to differentiate between different aspects of design and social process. The paper concludes by mapping out key relationships between different aspects of design and social process.