Distributed Design Thinking: Understanding the role & use of design representation

Abstract

Due to the ill-defined nature of design problems, and resulting search for solution candidates, the embodiment of intentionality through design representation is important to design thinking. Design representations are employed as means to support designerly thinking between ill-defined design problems and coupled solution candidates. One way into developing further understanding of design representation, its role and use as scaffold for design thinking, is to adopted theory on distributed cognition. I offer a review and discussion of design representation as distributed cognition. I then position distributed cognition as a possible means to scaffold design research aimed at building general theory to explain design representation’s role and use in design cognition.