With Emergence over, my attention has turned to my neglected theses endeavors. Earlier this week I bought a bunch of books, some of which arrived the past few days.

  • Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design (Interactive Technologies) by Bill Buxton
  • The Sciences of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon
  • Design Methods by John Chris Jones
  • How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified by Bryan Lawson
  • Design Thinking by Peter G. Rowe
  • A Sense of Self: The Work of Affirmation by Thomas J. Cottle

I skipped right to the end of How Designers Think to a chapter called “Towards a model of designing” as I’m interested in model that attempts to explain what’s happening between research and actual design. I found the following tidbits intriguing.

Unfortunately, the really interesting things that happen in the design process may be hidden in designers’ heads rather than being audible or visible.

And…

Designing is far too complex a phenomenon to be describable by a simple diagram.

I’m wondering if these two statements alone make my investigation moot.