The Design Way ─ Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World

Humans did not discover fire--they designed it. Design is not defined by softwareprograms, blueprints, or font choice. When we create new things--technologies, organizations,processes, systems, environments, ways of thinking--we engage in design. With this expansive view ofdesign as their premise, in The Design Way Harold Nelson and Erik Stolterman makethe case for design as its own culture of inquiry and action. They offer not a recipe for designpractice or theorizing but a formulation of design culture's fundamental core of ideas. Theseideas--which form "the design way"--are applicable to an infinite variety of designdomains, from such traditional fields as architecture and graphic design to such nontraditionaldesign areas as organizational, educational, interaction, and healthcaredesign.

The text of this second edition is accompanied by new detailed images,"schemas" that visualize, conceptualize, and structure the authors' understanding ofdesign inquiry. The text itself has been revised and expanded throughout, in part in response toreader feedback.

Harold G. Nelson was 2009--2010 Nierenberg Distinguished Professor of Design at Carnegie Mellon University and is currently Senior Instructor in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School and President of the Advanced Design Institute. Erik Stolterman is Professor of Informatics and Department Chair in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Bloomington.