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Dear Jerry I agree with this line of thinking entirely. This is why I changed the name of my course from "Design Methods (Theory and Practice) to "Design Concepts and Concerns", the intention of the designer and (their client and stake holders) the belief system that informs them and their openness to feedback is central to effective design. Design itself is a meandering process, impossible to predict (unknowable - thank you Jonas) and satisfying when it succeeds, in each particular instance. Design is also a "reflexive process" since it is effected in a populated space that affects others (other humans, competition, other beliefs or dogma of truths held by history etc.) who will in turn respond to any offering with their own response in both time and space, which makes it all the more complex and at times controversial, especially in projects of public good and macro-economic ventures that include social change, like using public transport instead of private cars. Design advocacy may include systems offerings that are not products but suggested behavior change in the users, which make it political as well. Making new laws is a great design act by this line of thinking, and our Supreme Court has been very effective in this area where our democratic legislative processes seem to have failed, for example ban on felling forests to stop the destruction of bio-diversity in the Himalayan region of India. My own work on bamboo as an economic driver for development in India touches on some of these economic and socio-political aspects and they are an integral part of our frame of reference. Thank you for the link to your website and your tool (see link below) "Designer PiE2K: Ways of Thinking About Design" which is quite fascinating and deep. I have downloaded the application to my Mac at home and office, but do you have a windows version (or a pdf file that I can recommend) , most of my students use windows at our school..... <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~diethelm/next3.html> With warm regards M P Ranjan from my office at NID 16 August 2005 at 1.30 pm IST ___________________________________________________________________ Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of Design Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives Faculty Member on NID Governing Council (2003 -2005) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 INDIA Tel: 91+79+26610054 (Res) Tel: 91+79+26639692 ext 1090 (Off) Tel: 91+79+26639692 ext 4095 (Off) Fax: 91+79+26605242 email: <[log in to unmask] web archive: <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/> __________________________________________________________________ On 16-Aug-05, at 12:31 AM, Jerome Diethelm wrote: > Proposals in design processes of any complexity are quite naturally > and regularly subjected to evaluation against the forces that are > driving the process, whatever we call them - needs, interests, > concerns, desires, fears, beliefs – as the process unfolds.