—This is the page, where we will develop an expanded and refined design vocabulary. The original list came from the Chapter 37 of Managing as Designing edited by Richard Boland and Fred Collopy. Youngjin Yoo has set up this page so that the class 2008 and 2009 of EDM program can work on this. We invite you to add new words, expand the meanings of the existing words, and add examples.

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Unfix

Re-defining or negotiating meaning in the context of a project or task, the notion of challenging the status quo.

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Alchemizing:

To add disparte ideas into a creative stew that can brew into pieces to many, but unique to itself. An element of "brainstroming" in a iterative process.

Administrivia In the context of working with a voluntary board of directors, administrivia is focusing on the details of ‘getting the work done.’ Important work in a tactical approach of moving projects forward through a process.

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Agonize

To agonize is to be more than just worried or concerned about an issue. It is an emotional struggle with the competing forces and demands of the situation, and indicates an intense level of care about the right course of action. One agonizes about a problem because one knows that there are multiple, conflicting criteria, and no identifiably "true" answer. One must act, even though one does not have a sense of comfort that the alternative chosen is the best that could have been achieved. It also connotes an emotional, visceral commitment to find the best solution, an enduring uncertainty as to whether it has been achieved, and the feeling that one's reputation is on the line to achieve it. Problems that one agonizes about are fundamental to a professional identity and sense of responsibility for living up to one's own standards.

Agunize To confuse or obfiscate. Make overly complex and confusing.

Fourth Deminsion: A mode of thinking. To think from a unique or unusaual perspective or in a new way.

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Artifact

The tangible result from a design process is an artifact- a product, process, communication or technique that we have designed. Appropriate use of the term helps us to realize how much of the organizational world is designed by managers, either consciously or unconsciously. Managers are responsible for their artifacts and should consider whther they are well designed or not.

Balance

A good design solution always reflects a balance of competing demands between user needs, the environment, future generations, resource capacities, real costs, and the unique historical tensions of the situation. Human judgment is the only way to achieve balance, and human judgment is an art developed over time by one who takes a designer's responsibility for shaping the world that others must live in.

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Borrow

To borrow ideas and approaches in design work is commonplace. And an awareness of those elements of a design that are being taken from another project, another colleague, or another sphere of human activity is helpful in creating good design solutions. Designs almost always display borrowing, because the slate is never blank at the beginning of a project, and all ideas and design elements are ultimately related to others. The important thing is to recognize what one is borrowing from other designs and situations, so that one can reflect on the appropriateness of using it, rather than inventing a new approach for this situation.

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Boundary Object

A boundary object is an artifact (prototype, report, pictorial representation, model, etc.) that serves as an intermediary in communication between two or more persons or groups who are collaborating in work. The phrase connotes that the object is a symbolic carrier of multiple meanings, which the parties to the interaction can use as a basis for productive interaction. A boundary object allows parties with diverse interests to raise the possible meanings it has for them in a conversation of discovery. It serves as a stimulus to a sense making process rather than a message in a communicative exchange.

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Brainstorming

The process of gathering design ideas by allowing and motivating designers and users to imagine a future when barriers are broken down. It uses contextual inquiry approach to help designers and users to understand "what are the things that we need to see to help us understand how things work and don’t work."

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Bricolage A French word that means "to use whatever resources and reportoire one has to perform whatever task one faces (Levi-Stauss, 1966). Weick (2001) notes that successful bricolage is more than just piecing constructs together and has the following distinguishing features: (a) Bricoluers are engaged and see and absorb detail, (b) Past experiences are exhaustive and are sythesized, (b) People are willing to work with the resources at hand, (c) Rationality of "making do" trumps decision rationality, (d) Designers appreciate the aesthetics of imperfection

Also, see "Scrappiness"

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Circulation (also: path)

People experience organizations, systems, and policies as paths through the social and economic landscape. They affect human interaction by encouraging the use of certain paths and inhibiting the use of others. People interact with each other as they follow paths through the systems in which they live and work, and experience those systems as the paths they follow, not as the grand logic which a system designer may have had for them, whether it is a building, a software system, a reward and promotion system, a logistics system, or a departmental structure.

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Client

A designer always has a client and is always producing a product or service for that client. A client is indispensable to the statement of the design project and the setting of the design problem. Every manager and every worker in an organization has a client who should be taken into account in defining what projects and what purposes are being or should be served.

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Collaboration

A path creating design will necessarily involve collaboration among partners who each bring unique expertise and talents to the project. Without collaboration across boundaries of disciplines, organizations, and perspectives, a design project has limited possibilities for invention of new solutions.

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Constraint

Every project has constraints that serve to give boundaries to a problem. In a decision attitude, constraints are seen as undesirable, but to a design attitude, constraints are the elements of challenge in the problem situation. They can serve as stimuli to the invention of new approaches and to the creative adaptation of materials, techniques and practices from other domains. When one identifies the constraints of a design problem, one is defining the problem.

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Creativity

Creativity is a mental process during which new ideas, new design, and new concepts that are considered to have both originality and appropriateness are generated. It is also an essential part of innovation/invention and it needs the guiding energy of a design attitude to focus efforts on results that are truly innovative.

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Crystallize

A design project becomes crystallized when the basic structure and form of the solution, as well as the materials, technologies, and processes to be employed in the design, have already been decided upon. Once a project is crystallized, the ability to revise elements of the design is greatly reduced, without incurring substantial extra costs. In general, a decision attitude moves toward crystallization too quickly.

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Default

The most familiar and expected solution to a design problem is the default solution. It is often the first thing that comes to mind, and is related to the logic of path dependency. For instance, the default executive office has a large desk facing the door, with a window behind it and several seats in front of it for visitors. Organizational systems that follow commonly encountered standard operating procedures are default systems. Default solutions are often the safest organizationally, but are usually the least effective in creating an advantage for the firm. Being aware that the first ideas that will be generated in a design process can make it easier to reject them and search beyond them for higher payoff, path-creating solutions.

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Design the Experience - Experience the Design

The 'product' that we see physically is not always the real product. For example, the output of hard work and preparation prior to entertaining guests at home is not just the meal on the table but actually the experience of the evening to engage and delight the guests. Thus, understanding the the user and the desired user experience and designing to deliver that experience is vital for anyone concerned with designing. Thus the mantra for designers is - "Design the Exepereince" and for users to "Experience the Design"

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Dialogue

Design problems, which contain multiple, conflicting objectives, cannot usually be solved by the logic of one person alone. To achieve a good solution, dialogue among the actors in the design process is usually required, if not to develop the design ideas, then to gain consensus on the best alternative.

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Divergent Describes a process of design involving a series of steps that intentionally do not converge, nor approach a limit, but rather drives a bending away from the center. Intentional expansion of an idea, prior to the crystallization or converging process. Refers to the element of expansion, without limitations.

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Drawing (also sketch)

Drawing is a mode of thinking that is especially appropriate for design work. To draw, freehand and quickly, is to let your ideas take shape in a holistic, intuitive process of thought that flows among elements of the design problem. Drawing can create an especially effective boundary object because a drawing is tentative, evocative and depicts relations of the whole.

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Emotion (also: energy, excitement, and feeling)

Designing is one managerial activity which openly and enthusiastically includes emotion as a part of its process and as a part of its product. The emotional content of a design brings it a human meaning. It is the basis upon which people experience a design as being truly meaningful in their lives. For an organization design, it is the difference between a mediocre and a high performing organization. A design without emotional content is dead and will not serve to enhance organizational performance. A design is truly functional only if it includes an emotional reaction by its users. Designers who are emotionally connected to their deign process can agonize about certain aspects of the design in a genuine way.

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Engage Engagement references the interest level type and intensity of involvement and interaction of the designers both within the organization and with various constituents external to it.

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Experiment (also: invention)

Unless one is following a path dependent, default approach to a design problem, one will necessarily become involved in experiment and invention. Whenever a designer cannot simply draw upon a standard set of elements (materials, technologies, work practices, calculations, etc.) in a design project, experiment will be necessary. Experiment should be done with a self-reflective awareness of how one is performing as a scientist in drawing on a theory, posing an hypothesis, and testing for the results. If you are not experimenting and inventing new materials, processes, systems or technologies, you are following a default solution and should be openly aware of that fact.

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Fit

The designer senses a better alternative through a sense of fit. Fit refers to the way that the materials, technologies, logics, objectives, timing, scale and scope of a design work together in harmony to support the overall purpose of the design project. If an element of the design gives the feeling that it does not fit, it is probably inappropriate. A sense of fit, like an aesthetic judgment is a subjective matter, and should not be relinquished to a technique of calculation.

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Form

The overall structure of an artifact is its form. A building, organization, technology, or process has a form that actors within it respond to. The form of an artifact can shape the types of activities that take place within it or in interaction with it, by enabling and constraining the sets of actions, expectations, values and assumptions of its users.

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Functional

Functional is the ultimate criteria of success in a design project. It denotes not just that a design is efficient and effective, but that it relates appropriately to human emotion, ecological sustainability, the cultural history of the organization and society at large, and the multiple contexts in which it will interact or which it will affect.

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Future-proofing

Robust designs are immune to external variations in their intended use and immune to internal variations that characterize their behavior - they are 'future proofed'

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Gesture

A gesture is an organizing element of a design that serves to distinguish it from other possible solutions to the same design problem. A gesture gives a unique feel to the structure of a design, and serves as a marker for sense making by its users. It also conveys the aesthetic that guides a design, and helps to set the vocabulary that will be carried through a design. In an organizational context, a rule that all employees have the same benefit system would be a gesture.

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Goal (also: purpose)

A design problem must have a goal or it will not be a viable design project. The goal should be open-ended (as in a purpose) so that it can serve as the basis for posing an ideal that is sought for in the design. This allows the design problem to be one that calls for ones best efforts to strive beyond default solutions, and at the same time gives a ground for making design judgments of fit, balance, functionality.

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Groundlessness

A designer experiences groundlessness in the sense that they are uniquely responsible a project in which the problem definition, criteria for success, and standards of evaluation are all without an objective reference point. Every aspect of the design project could be other than it is without violating an incontrovertible rule and is radically dependent on the subjectivity of the designer.

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Handrail

Any new design will inevitably seem strange to its users at first encounter. A design should explain itself to its users, and convey a feeling of comfort and welcome. It should provide a handrail for those engaging it so that the unfamiliar can become familiar without causing undue stress.

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Heart Pick projects you love and pick people who love what they will do to work with you on the project. This will allow the creation of systems with heart and soul. If you love it, you can design it.

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Improvise

Using objects, resources and structures that are readily at hand for a purpose other than that which they are normally intended is improvisation. As in music, it connotes a playful and skillful working with elements in a novel way to achieve a desirable outcome. Avoiding a default solution and achieving a path-creating design solution will almost always require improvisation.

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Iteration

Moving through the design process again, after an initial solution has been proposed is iteration. Iteration can keep a problem open by resisting falling in love with the ideas of the solution as developed thus far, and proposing an alternative approach. Or, iteration can begin to crystallize a solution by adding refinement and working out sub problems inherent in the solution being considered.

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Liquid

When a design problem is open as to its form, technologies and materials, it is liquid. During the liquid state, a design problem is open to many possible directions in its solution, and serves as a vehicle for wide ranging explorations and dialogue. Keeping a design problem in a liquid state is difficult, but essential if a best design solution is being sought. Without an effort to the contrary, a design problem will too quickly become crystallized, and inquiry into the best solution will be constrained.

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Love

The human experience of love is a fundamental to the creation and appreciation of designs. We do things because we love to, and we feel that design ideas are good ones because we fall in love with them. Humans' often fall in love with the first good idea they develop, and can become blinded to other possibilities. A designer has to maintain a constant tension between loving an alternative they are exploring so that can approach it with true passion, and resisting falling in love with an alternative until they have explored a sufficient number of alternatives.

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Model

A model is a physical or virtual representation of a possible solution to a design problem. A model serves as a boundary object during project work, and also allows for a process of thinking with ones hands, both during model construction and also when manipulating the model. Good design does not confuse the model for the thing being designed, and treats the model as a vehicle for thinking and exploring ideas. Ion the early stages of a design project, the expectation should be that the model will be replaced by something quite different, and will not be refined into the design solution.

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Myriad

Design is about diversity: the myriad solutions available to explore for every challenge; a beautiful descriptor of the many possibilities within the kaleidoscopic process of opening, considering, creating, adapting, renewing and inventing.

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NIH

Not Invented Here (NIH) is a common sociological phenomenon among designers that they avoid or unwilling to adapt an idea, product, process, knowledge or technique that was developed elsewhere. NIH may also be used in a positive way to identify object that are not of its own invention.

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Opportunistic

Designing involves adaptation to or incorporating elements that surface during work on a project. Search for an improvement in one aspect of a design may lead to an awareness of new ideas, technologies, or processes relevant to another aspect of the design. Being opportunistic enables the designer to recognize the possibilities for some aspect of the project of an unexpected discovery. It requires an openness to consider found objects and in initially unrelated ideas as being relevant to the project.

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Path-Creating

Developing a new, generative and reinforcing set of relationships among elements in a socio-economic system is path-creating activity. Path-creation breaks from the expectations of the familiar, "logical" way of proceeding, based on the self-reinforcing patterns of the past. Path creation is the way to establish sustainable innovations as the elements of a system begin to reinforce each other and lead to a shift in their costs, availability and functionality, thereby shifting the ideas of what is a "logical" choice in a design problem.

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Path Dependent

In any situation, over time, there will emerge one dominant path for problem solution, because self-reinforcing relationships of demand, production costs, logistics and technologies will form. These self- reinforcing paths become seen as the rational way to approach a problem solution, often without regard to the true appropriateness of the solution. Path dependence leads to a sense of economy and efficiency, but often at the expense of the effectiveness of unexplored alternative solutions.

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Patternize- Turning a design into a pattern that can be used to create a variety of objects.  For example, a pattern of colored LED lights can be used to create jewelry, toys, dog collars, etc.

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Placeholder

When some aspect of a design is unresolved, it need not stop work on the remainder of the project. A placeholder is often used to show that the designer realizes something is missing or needed in some part of the design, but it has not been identified, invented, or determined yet.

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Play

An open, liquid design process involves playing with ideas, alternatives, and elements of the design. The design emerges through playful interaction with materials, models, and alternatives being considered. Playing with meanings, implications, and purposes of a design project can lead to the emergence of unexpected insights or discoveries that can be opportunistically included in the project.

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Project

The design process is bounded by or contained within projects. A project has a desired outcome, has a client, and has a beginning and an end. A project has stages beginning with an exploratory definition stage, an initial design concept stage, a detailed design stage, and a construction and implementation stage. The stages are not neatly linear, but are recursive and partially concurrent. The project has a manger that is responsible for its successful completion.

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Prototype

A model of the design artifact that is made quickly is a prototype. It serves as a boundary object in testing form, fit and functionality. A prototype is most effective if it is made to be discarded in a multi stage process of posing and evaluating possible approaches to a design solution, and not merely as a version to be refined as the final design.

Prototype is used to demonstrate and prove a concept before volume production is committed which is often costly. Prototype may be functional or non-functional. Design engineer uses prototype to test out function and check out faults, while marketing management uses it for market study. With today’s creative but complex design, virtual computer modeling of prototype is possible and necessary before actual prototype is built. Multiple versions of prototype are often required before the first article of product is built.

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Recycle

Aspects of a design that have worked in the past are often drawn upon again in subsequent projects. This can be a good idea, but is dependent on the designer having awareness that they are recycling the elements. Without such an awareness, the designer risks producing a default solution, or strengthening a path dependency.

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Repertoire

The different techniques and approaches to design problems that a designer has developed a fluency in are the designer's repertoire. The size of a designer's vocabulary is usually proportional to the size of their repertoire. A repertoire grows with experience and engagement with different design projects over time. Other things being equal, a larger repertoire is associated with greater probabilities of success in a design project.

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Scaffolding

De-centered style in which the designer takes a holistic approach to a system, organization or structure by envisioning and experiencing its virtual periphery/boundary. The goal is to generate a supportive 'scaffolding' that is both flexible and strong enough to allow the organic system to thrive.

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Space

A design artifact, whether it is a building, a software system, a financial reporting system or a personnel evaluation system creates a space that is experienced by people who engage with it. People experience being located within the space, and being able to move in it. The experience of space and of movement within space is the basis for experiencing time. The space of an organizational system can be experienced as narrow and confining or broad and expansive. It can be comfortable and inviting or off-putting. It can encourage collegiality or isolation.

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Scrappy, Scrappiness

The notion of the design process whereby using the ability to take an idea and form it only as much as it needs to be formed in order to evolve it. The design starts with an idea, others critique it and help to evolve with whatever means are at hand. Then design receives more feedback, it evolves over time and becomes a mini work-in-progress. Design progresses in a "scrappy way" as customers and users provide feedback. The process is efficient for two reasons: it is rapid and it uses minimal resources. And at the same time if offers a high degree of adaptability given the high level of feedback.

Also see "Bricolage"

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Stickiness

The ability of a new artifact or process to gain immediate acceptance by a user, or “stick”. If a product is very sticky, the user will immediately abandon an existing artifact or process in favor of the new one. If the product has a low level of stickiness, the user will continue to use the existing artifact or process. Stickiness depends heavily on how enjoyable or functional the experience of the user was when he/she first tried the new artifact or process.

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Study

A model or prototype of a small element of a design solution that is being explored is a study. Design problems have a nested nature, in that each step toward a solution to a design problem raises new, unforeseen problems, the possible solutions to which, in turn, propose other unforeseen problems. Because design problems are in that sense a labyrinth, a design project involves many studies.

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Tempered Design During the design process, the design "actors" go through many iterations of the artifact(s) impacted by the limitations imposed by the project and the resulting compromise is defined as tempered design.

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Tension

A good design problem has multiple tensions between competing logics, needs and goals of its many stakeholders. Engaging those tensions openly and creatively is necessary for good design.

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Throwness

A manager is never in a situation without a history. A situation always already has interested actors, cultural norms, path-dependencies, infrastructures, policies, laws, and expectations related to it that will shape the problem space being addressed.

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Vocabulary

A designer approaches problems with a set of images, concepts, sensibilities, tastes, preferences, and logic that have been developed through time and experience. These, plus the words, materials, forms, and logics that a designer employs in a particular design project are referred to as the designer's vocabulary. Designers approach a project with an awareness of their own history and the history of others who have worked on similar problems before. A strong design vocabulary both enables and constrains a designer. Being aware of one's own vocabulary and that of previous work in the area, is important for being able to maintain a coherence in their design as it is developed (by maintaining a coherent vocabulary) and for being able to avoid a default solution (by avoiding clichés).