Design as co-evolution of problem, solution, and audience

The meaning of ‘design’ can be captured in a general way by a good definition, but even the best definition cannot provide an understanding sufficiently deep to guide the professional designer or the student of design in the intricate practice of doing design. Therefore we explore design beyond the level of definitions, reviewing canonical theories about design as a professional enterprise. We find that the well-established theoretical notion of ‘co-evolution’ of problem and solution in design has its merits in regard to understanding design practice; but also that existing theories leave the practitioner at a loss for guidance in some respects. To remedy this situation, we propose the notion of ‘triple co-evolution’ that also involves the ‘audience’ of a designed artefact. Furthermore, we conjecture that the theoretical discipline known as ‘constitutive rhetoric’ offers valuable conceptual resources for conceiving of design in terms of such triple co-evolution. In support of this conjecture, we present a small sample of design cases, arguably showing signs of triple co-evolution and understandable in terms of ‘audience constitution’.