Definitions of engineering abound, as do definitions of design. Sheppard’s characterization of what engineers do is especially relevant: engineers “scope, generate, evaluate, and realize ideas". Sheppard’s characterization focuses on how engineers think and embraces the heart of the design process by highlighting the creation (i.e., scoping and generation), assessment, and selection (i.e., evaluation), and the making or bringing to life (i.e., realization) of ideas. Pahl has argued that the knowledge of technical systems or analysis is not sufficient to understand the thought processes that lead to successful synthesis or design, and that studying those thought processes is critical to improving design methodologies. What does the word “design” mean in an engineering context? Why is this complex, fascinating subject so hard to teach? The definition of design adopted here sets a course for answering these questions: Engineering design is a systematic, intelligent process in which designers generate, evaluate, and specify concepts for devices, systems, or processes whose form and function achieve clients’ objectives or users’ needs while satisfying a specified set of constraints. This definition promotes engineering design as a thoughtful process that depends on the systematic, intelligent generation of design concepts and the specifications that make it possible to realize these concepts. While creativity is important, and may even be teachable, design is not invention as caricatured by the shouting of “Eureka” and the flashing of a light bulb. Design problems reflect the fact that the designer has a client (or customer) who, in turn, has in mind a set of users (or customers) for whose benefit the designed artifact is being developed. The design process is itself a complex cognitive process. There are many informative approaches to characterizing design thinking, some of which are now detailed. These characterizations highlight the skills often associated with good designers, namely, the ability to:● tolerate ambiguity that shows up in viewing design as inquiryor as an iterative loop of divergent-convergent thinking;● maintain sight of the big picture by including systems thinkingand systems design;● handle uncertainty;● make decisions;● think as part of a team in a social process; and● think and communicate in the several languages of design.
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