Science versus design; comparable, contrastive or conducive?

Abstract

Science and design are two completely separated areas of expertise with their own specialists. Science analyses the existing world to create new knowledge, design uses existing knowledge to create a new world. This tunnel-vision mentality and narrow-minded approach is dangerous for problem solving, where a broad view on potential solutions is required to realise a high-quality answer on the defined problem.

We state that design benefits from scientific methods, resulting in a more effective design process and in better products, while science benefits from a design approach, resulting in more efficient and effective results. Our philosophy is illustrated using examples from the field of biomedical engineering.

Both methods can benefit tremendously from each other. By applying scientific methods, superior choices will be made in the design process. With design, more accurate, effective and efficient science will be performed.

Introduction

As many at his time, Leonardo da Vinci was a scientist, designer and artist: after a scientific study of bird flight he was able to design an airplane. Nowadays, specialisation generally brings us to consider science and design as fully separated and fundamentally different domains (Fig. 1). Design aims at realising a new world from existing knowledge, while science aims at realising new knowledge from the existing world. Design starts with defining the goal and function (analysis) to end with a structure (synthesis); science starts with a structure (synthesis), defines its function and finally its goal (analysis).

Also in practice, science and design are considered to be completely different (Divall, 1991). Grant (1979) stated this clearly: ‘the act of designing itself is not and will not ever be a scientific activity’. And Fallman (2007) stated: ‘The difference between academic science and commercial design needs to be recognised and made explicit. It is simply too much to do both good design, with a happy client, and good science, with happy peers’.

Some attempts have been made to bridge the two. Kesselring, 1942, Kesselring, 1954 already discussed the link between design and science. Gregory (1966) introduced the term ‘design science’, meaning that design is, like science, organised in a systematic way (Cross, 2007). Glanville (1999) even envisioned science is a restricted form of design: when scientific questions are answered, they create many more new scientific questions. Such a circular process is also present in the design process. A third link is that design as a method may be the subject of scientific investigation (Grant, 1979, Restrepo and Christiaans, 2004, Cross, 2001). This made Fallman (2007) to introduce the concept of ‘design-oriented research’, being the study of the designed product in use, or of the process of bringing the product into being.

Indeed, all of these studies presented analogies between science and design, mainly focused on their characteristics, rather than on the methodology or content of the process: the only similarities found are that both are structured, iterative and systematic. Each process has a unique and different methodology and goal: science studies the world to create new knowledge, design uses knowledge to create a new world. Because of this distinct difference, both the methods are applied fully independently, each by its own specialists: scientists and designers.

The goal of this article is to show that this strict separation between science and design is counterproductive. Design needs science and science needs design. When the two methods are used in addition to each other, both methods benefit: both become much more efficient and effective.