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Dear Stuart, the concept (or idea) of "design space" emerges from the engineering design in the sixties, where "design-space" describes the range of action for engineering design. The first references I know are from the first Design Methods Conferences: William Gosling, The Relevance of System Engineering, (p. 31), 1962 Conference He refers to design problem within design process, looking forward a construction of a theory of design: *All the fore going may be considered as providing the necessary ground work for an answer to the question of the relevance of the emerging discipline of system engineering to the more general topic of design, at least in an engineering context. If the definition of system engineering proposed here is accepted it will be seen as a particular case, and a very simple one, of the general design problem. Indeed, system engineering formalizes even the actual process of designing a real engineering system. Thus the formalized design situation of a sponsor, a system designer, and element designers, as separate individuals activated by rational motives, is not exactly paralleled in reality, where these entities will probably be groups, and their motivations will, at least in part, be determined by interpersonal relationships within and without the group. Similarly only rarely will a system be assembled entirely from available elements: more commonly some crucial elements will have marginal availability status. Similarly much specification data will be unavailable, system users will not behave rationally, the system environment will change unpredictably as a result of uncontrolled economic and technological developments, and so on. A more sophisticated second generation system design theory will take some of these factors into account, others will contribute an uncertainty factor to design space, but a naive formalized theory has proved a valuable starting point.* *Just as system engineering can grow in maturity by progressively complicating its model of the design process, so it seems not unreasonable to hope that the whole discipline of system engineering may serve as a paradigm for a rational theory of design.* S. A. Gregory uses the concept in: Design Science (p. 397), 1965 Conference, Birmingham *Varieties of DesignStudents of technological design already recognize different versions of design activity which may have a hierarchical relationship within the design-space of a system. For example, it may be a system or a component that is designed; it may be a process or a container.Not all major practical design activity is necessarily overtly concerned with system design .* There is a great PhD work, by Christopher Heape (that he shared in this list in 2012): *The Design Space: the design process as the construction, exploration and expansion of a conceptual space* here are the links he posted: *Abstract: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/Chris%20Heape%20PhD%20abstract%20%2B%20table%20of%20contents.pdf <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/Chris%20Heape%20PhD%20abstract%20%2B%20table%20of%20contents.pdf>* *Methods chapter: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/Ch%203%20%2ADesign%20Space%20complete%2A%20-%20A4.pdf <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/Ch%203%20%2ADesign%20Space%20complete%2A%20-%20A4.pdf>* *References: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/References%20%2ADesign%20Space%20complete%2A%20-%20A4.pdf <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/References%20%2ADesign%20Space%20complete%2A%20-%20A4.pdf>* *PhD thesis: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/%2ADesign%20Space%20complete%2A%20-%20A4.pdf <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18200550/%2ADesign%20Space%20complete%2A%20-%20A4.pdf>* best regards ........................................... Alejandra Poblete P. Assistant professor | Design School | UTEM 2016-02-17 20:27 GMT-03:00 Stuart Reeves <[log in to unmask]>: > Hi > > I wondered whether anyone here had any references to any discussions about > the term "design space". > > The concept is prevalent in HCI I think; the classical use being design > spaces organised / and traversed via the assistance of cognitive theory as > in the case of input devices, but there are various ways in which the term > is used and intended beyond this in HCI. A cursory look around the CS > literature also reveals different areas of CS using it in particular ways > (e.g., design automation, computer architecture, etc.). > > I thought it must also have quite a bit of vintage in design and design > research that I'm not very aware of. I think(?) some of this might start > with Simon but I am unsure. > > I've had a look at the archives of this mailing list and couldn't really > find much discussion of the term itself (although there is plenty of use). > > So I wondered whether anyone had written directly about the term before? > Or if anyone has any thoughts on the different ways in which the term / > concept is used? > > > Thanks. > > -- > > Stuart Reeves > > Mixed Reality Lab > School of Computer Science (C15), University of Nottingham > [log in to unmask] > http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~str > > Latest papers: > - Embeddedness and sequentiality in social media (http://bit.ly/1WlQiaN) > - HCI as science (http://bit.ly/1LHG9OB) > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> > Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design > Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------