Hi, Ben.

One difficulty so many people seem to have with Simon's definition is 
not that it covers all design processes, but rather they feel it 
covers too much.

This is exacerbated by misreading and misquoting Simon.

Simon does not define design as "changing existing situations into 
preferred ones." You've placed quotation marks around that phrase, 
but you have not quoted Simon.

Simon defines design as to "[devise] courses of action aimed at 
changing existing situations into preferred ones."

This has four operative parts:

1) to devise courses of action
2) aimed at
3) changing existing situations
4) into preferred ones

Each of these four operative parts has a specific meaning that 
conditions the whole:

1) to devise courses of action = planning
2) aimed at = intention
3) changing existing situations = state change
4) into preferred ones = teleology, intended outcome

Design is all four parts together, 1) planning a course of action, 
with the 2) intention of 3) state change toward a 4) preferred state.

Please note that this definition does not require that the state 
actually be preferred when we achieve it. The definition merely 
requires that we intend a change to a preferred state.

Achieving a preferred state is the result of successful design, and 
-- depending on where we wish to draw the boundaries of a 
comprehensive design process, this may also include evaluation and 
feedback into

The difficulty with ordinary language is that in ordinary language we 
often confuse the _design_ action (designing or planning) with the 
_implementation behavior_ (executing the design) and even with the 
designed artifact (exemplified in hundreds of magazine articles on 
"great design" that describe artifacts rather than the process of 
planning the artifacts).

This confusion in ordinary language combined with inaccurate reading 
(or quoting) suggests to me the reason that Simon seems problematic 
to you.

As I see it, however, you are criticizing Simon for something he 
neither stated nor intended. You've  rewritten Simon to define design 
as "changing existing situations into preferred ones." On that 
definition, it is possible to label far more as design than Simon 
does. But Simon doesn't do that.

Let's see how your three examples hold up against Simon's definition: 
"[devising] courses of action aimed at changing existing situations 
into preferred ones."

Example 1: Switching on my reading light is, on this definition, a 
design process,

(1) This does not fit Simon's definition. PLANNING to switch on your 
reading light is the design process. Switching on your reading light 
is an implementation process.

Example 2: as is putting clothes on in the morning

(2) PLANNING to put on your clothes would be a design process. 
Putting them on is not. Here, by the way, is an interesting case. The 
way we put our clothes on is generally habituated, that is, learned 
behavior. We rarely need to plan. If we had to plan or design 
everything explicitly, we'd never get through the day. But SOMETIMES 
we plan. I recently had to attend a ceremony and my wife, a 
theologian with a good understanding of ceremony and fashion, thought 
through my wardrobe and carefully planned the tie and shirt I ought 
to wear with a specific suit. As everyone knows, I have two dozens 
pairs of the same black jeans, two dozen or the same white shirt, all 
from one manufacturer, and that's what I wear nearly all the time. 
When I need to plan my wardrobe, I call on the former canon of Lund 
Cathedral to help me dress properly.

Example 3: phoning my mother

(3) Once again, PLANNING 	to phone your mother is a design 
process. Calling home is something else. if you're lucky, it gets you 
into the movies like ET.

Example 4: my persistent yet largely unsuccessful attempts to learn Danish

(4) Here, too, a PLAN to learn Danish is the design. Most of us plan 
to learn Danish without doing so. Many of us even try to speak Danish 
without doing so. The Crown Princess of Denmark, an Australian lawyer 
by training, is one of the few who seems to have managed it, thus 
achieving the preferred state.

I've got to give more thought to the issues in the rest of your post. 
They are worth considering. On this one issue, however, I think Simon 
has defined the design process in a way that does not apply to 
everything. It does, of course, apply to the many -- very many -- 
human planning processes that constitute a design act. Some of these 
are professional, some of these are everyday acts. In fact, I would 
argue that any creature that can meet Simon's definition does, by 
definition, design. My dog Jacob does so every day, when he

1) devises courses of action = plans
2) aimed at = intention
3) changing existing situations = state change
4) into preferred ones = teleology, intended outcome

It's clear that Jacob isn't going to open a design consultancy any 
time soon, and this suggests a difference between professional design 
and design as a verb. Simon defines design as a verb, giving specific 
examples from different professions. We also use adjectives for 
different kinds of professional designers -- industrial design, 
graphic design, engineering, software design, legislator, chef de 
cuisine, and so on. It also suggests that most, perhaps all design 
professions include in the range of professional actions activities 
that involve designing and activities that involve implementing the 
design. One of the problems in ordinary language -- and one of the 
problems in guild culture -- is that those of us who design one range 
of artifacts or processes often forget that people who design other 
kinds of artifacts or processes also design. One of the genuine 
virtues of Simon's definition, properly understood, is that design 
research involves all instances of design as well as allowing us to 
focus on specific instances of design, embodied instances of design, 
and different aspects of design and design outcomes.

Yours,

Ken

p.s. I'm only half joking when I say that dogs or horses can design. 
Mary Catherine Bateson gives a wonderful example of a horse 
constructing theories, and I had a dog who showed an intriguing 
ability to theorize and design. Naturally, horses and dogs -- along 
with primates like you and me -- theorize or design in relation to 
the objects and goals that interest them. Different kinds of design 
require different levels of attention and articulation, something for 
which the extremely silent Jacob is grateful. But, then, he has a 
highly trained assistant to implement his plans.

--

Ben Matthews wrote:

--snip--

The problem with definitions like Simon's (as I see it), is not for the
cases of design that do not fit within his definition-as many have
noted, his definition is quite broad. The problem is that while the
definition of design as 'changing existing situations into preferred
ones' happily accounts for most (maybe even all, depending on big an
umbrella you conceive a 'preferred situation' to be) things we would
ordinarily call design, it also happily accounts for many things we
would patently NOT call design. Switching on my reading light is, on
this definiton, a design process, as is putting clothes on in the
morning, phoning my mother, my persistent yet largely unsuccessful
attempts to learn Danish, and many more besides. The trick with this
definition is to try to find a field of human action which design is
not. Simon appeared to grasp an aspect of this when he claimed that the
science of man is the science of design, but that there is precisely
the problem. The net is cast so wide, in fact, that it offers little
help in clarifying what design is; i.e. what features of practices and
processes we pick out as designerly when we ordinarily use such a term.
What makes anything design is obscured by defining (nearly all!) human
activity as design.

--snip--