How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified

This is about design problems and the design process. Design skills (or "creativity") are involved in a great many human activities, but exactly how the design process occurs has obstinately resisted explanation both by those involved in practice and by psychologists. Bryan Lawson has the unusual qualification of being both a designer and a psychologist, and this book draws on his own teaching experience, designers' own accounts of their work, and the writing of design methodologists and theoreticians. The author shows that the design process involves a variety of different types of thinking and that design skills can be acquired, practised and improved, like playing an instrument, rather than being imparted as if by some mysterious process. His book will be of great interest not only to designers seeking a greater insight into their own thought processes, but also to students of design in general.