Design as a problem-solving activity

Simon was an academic pioneer working in domains including problem-solving and decision- making. His book, The Sciences of the Artificial21_{, first published in 1969, is one of the major 20}th

century works of design theory. It has had a profound impact on establishing design as a field of research and wrested design activity away from associations solely with industrial products, propelling its uptake in a wide range of other fields (Dorst, 2006: Huppatz, 2015).

Simon’s lifelong research project was to develop a new field centred on problem-solving as an objective, quantifiable and systematic process (Huppatz, 2015). He called this project the theory of ‘bounded rationality’ - spanning five decades of his career and fields including economics, management and psychology - its aim was to quantify human decision-making by reducing it to a mathematical model that could be used to predict outcomes and solve complex problems, thus explaining human behaviour by “simple and constrained, yet informed, decision rules” (Dorst, 2006, p.12). Simon believed that the social sciences needed the rigour of method found in the hard sciences to properly address the problems of social research; this began with an interest in problem-solving and decision-making in organisations and the new field of management studies, and later moved to other disciplines like design (Huppatz, 2015, p.30). The lens of decision making and problem-solving helps to explain Simon’s approach to design.

In Simon’s Science of Design theory (1988), design is principally concerned with reconciling a set of goals or challenges or the “inner environment” (i.e. the design problem) to the constraints of the “outer environment” (i.e. external factors), some of which may only be known as a matter of probability (Simon, 1998, p.116). The allocation of resources forms part of this theory, and Simon argues that the design process is concerned with factors such as the “conservation of scarce resources” and “cost-minimisation” (pp.124-5), these are features of the ‘outer environment’. Simon also emphasised “representation” in his theory of design, he argued that if a problem could be adequately represented its solution would become apparent, “solving a problem simply means representing it so as to make the solution transparent” (p.132). Simon believed that “the goal of designers’ problem-solving processes is to find satisfied alternatives in the face of a real-world complexity where optimisation is impossible” (You & Hands, 2019, p1347).

21 _{The Sciences of the Artificial was first published in 1969; this study uses the third edition published in}

Simon thus frames design as “a logical search for satisfactory criteria that fulfil a specific goal” (Huppatz, 2015, p.6). Although the Design Methods movement of the 1960s had already tried and abandoned the mathematical approach to design problems, Simon largely ignored these discoveries (Huppatz, 2015, p.36). He argued that once design was reduced to problem-solving, designers could use algorithms and computer programmes to find optimum solutions by following a mechanical process of “design without human intervention” (Huppatz, 2015, p.6). His core argument is that if a problem can be adequately represented it can be submitted to a methodological problem-solving process.

Simon’s rational problem-solving paradigm has had a significant influence on design theory, becoming a “powerful tool for the modelling of design, inspiring and permeating a large part of design methodology” (Dorst, 2006, p.9). Simon saw any goal-orientated act of human intention as an act of design and thus claimed a key role for design in all other professional activity. In part, his theory aimed to elevate the status of design to that of the hard sciences. Crucially, Simon frames design as a process which can result equally in the development of artefacts or systems. The relevance of design to strategy or policy development is thus present in his core definition, also referred to in Section 2.2.

“Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artefacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state. Design, so construed, is the core of all professional training; it is the principal mark that distinguishes professions from the sciences. Schools of engineering as well as schools of architecture, business, education, law, and medicine are all centrally concerned with the process of design.” (1998, p.111)

Some more recent authors highlight and extend the problem-solving paradigm. Cooper and Press (1995) argue that “because the products of design fulfil a specific function, design is an activity concerned, at least in passing, with problem-solving” (p.16). Whilst Buchanan (2001) describes design as “the human power of conceiving, planning, and making products that serve human beings in the accomplishment of their individual and collective purposes” (p.9). The ‘planning’ element in his broad definition of design is the “sequence of goals towards which design thinking and practice move” (p.9). In this statement, Buchanan suggests that a deliberate evolution and progression towards addressing a given problem is part of design.

Returning to the foundations of design theory through Simon’s ‘Science of Design’ paradigm (1988), it is easy to connect claims for design activity as an approach to strategic challenges in the public and civic sectors with early design theory. However, many theorists are now disenchanted with explanations of design as pure problem-solving and later readings of Simon’s work point to both the limitations and the enduring influence of this definition.