Drawings and the design process

Abstract

A characteristic of the design process in all areas of design is the use of a number of different types of drawings. The different types of drawings are associated, with different stages of the process with one type, the relatively unstructured and ambiguous sketch, occurring early in the process. Designers place great emphasis on the sketch often because it is thought to be associated with innovation and creativity. Because of this emphasis researchers have also begun to focus on the sketch and its role in design. The first aim of this paper is to collect together and review the results of this research and to relate it to similar research that has looked at the role of drawings in problem solving in other disciplines. Recently, however, researchers in the design area have begun to relate their work to a number of areas of research in cognitive psychology and cognitive science. This work provides theoretical frameworks, experimental methodologies and a considerable body of research results that are of great potential importance to design research. The second aim of this paper is to review three of these areas, working memory, imagery reinterpretation and mental synthesis, and to examine their implications for design research generally but with a particular emphasis on the role of sketching in design. © 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.