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Glenn Johnson seems to be saying that there are two types of design, what he sees as the main focus and everything else. A perfectly valid view for all of us to take, but perhaps not very helpful. I prefer to think of design as a broad description of a type of activity and complementary to research. Research is concerned with investigating the world as it is and design is concerned with modifying the world and creating new things. Everybody engages in both but generally does not describe themselves as a researcher or designer. Most design projects involve research and most research projects involve design, but the project will be described as design or research depending on its intended outcomes. If someone describes themselves as a researcher then you are likely to ask "in what field"? The same question is equally necessary if someone describes themselves as a designer. Thus each field needs it own semantics , methods and values and we should not seek to generalise or unify these, although one can usefully look for generic and transferable elements. Regards, Tony Fairlie-Clarke University of Glasgow