A Study on Development of Design Process and Methodology

Most of design history tends to be summarized by focusing on the design deliverables rather than on how the result of design is derived at. For example, there are numerous interesting stories recorded on the purpose and features of product, significance of existence in terms of design history, social background that produced products and intent of designer, etc., however, production process and methodology of designers who created the product are relatively not well known. There is no doubt that various individual methodologies are studied and proposed, however, data to introduce the overall development process is lacking due to the characteristic of tacit knowledge in methodology. This study was carried out focusing on the development process of ‘design method’ by designers themselves who are principals in creating design deliverables rather than design deliverable in terms of design history. In this study, it is assumed that it can identify features per periods and development elements by associating the whole development process of design process and methodology with design paradigms. And it has targeted to analyze the elements that affect design process and methodology in a diachronic perspective. Design history was theoretically investigated on what type of process and methodology was attempted under what societal circumstances per period in order to refocus in a ‘design methodology’ frame. Research data and examples on design methodologies per period were collected around the incidents that significantly affected design paradigms, such as pre-industrial revolution, post-industrial revolution, emergence of digital products in the 80s, emergence of complex environment in the 21st century, etc., and analyzed the changing factors commonly occurring regardless of period. I hope this study will contribute in understanding in terms of design history and it serve as a base to help younger designers to select a better methodology and develop their methodology by looking back at trial errors and efforts by senior designers.