Design as intentional action: a conceptual analysis

Abstract

Drawing on methods and literature from the field of philosophy, an account is given of the general nature of the artefact production process in order to provide a conceptual platform for design research. Designing is itself defined as the production of design representations; and the latter notion is analysed in the context of the artefact production process. The analysis is conducted in such a way as to keep the assumptions on which it is based explicit, plausible, and acceptable to common sense. The `obvious' view of design representations as descriptions of possible or future things is rejected, and so the major philosophical difficulty is to propose a reasonably precise definition of `design representation' without implying the existence of such non-existent things. To overcome that difficulty, a definition is developed in terms of human agents, their actions and ideas (including intentions). The paper closes with a summary of the assumptions made.