Research on Basic Concepts of Design Discipline Centering around the theories of four design scholars

Whether design is in accordance with the system as a discipline, or whether design is an object that deserves a system as a discipline, has been an important subject contemplated for over the last two decades in the field of design. Now it seems to be the right time for design to stand in the stage of getting prepared to be a discipline then adjusted as an exact and solid concept. Generally speaking, a discipline consists of history, criticism and theory. Design is no exception here. What matters here, however, is the relationship among the three. We need to take primary viewpoint toward the relationship with each other, like which stands more to the center and which comes to take a supportive role. Also, a problem regarding the relationship between “practice and theory” must be clearly settled, according to the characteristic of the design field. This paper takes an aim in minutely looking into the roles of each element from understanding the inter-relationship of such elements, then ultimately going on to settle the purpose and meaning of design studies. Methodology-wise, this paper is based on the design theory analysis, focused on four scholars – Richard Buchanan, Victor Margolin, Nigel Cross and Gui Bonseipe. Another theories were additionally used, when needed according to the progress. Seen from such viewpoint, design can no longer be defined only within professional field called designer, but a requisite condition has appeared to expand concept and field to reach the sphere of public and socio-cultural viewpoint. Industrial designers cannot have direct knowledge of all the users or the situations of use of the things they design. They must, however, work with some knowledge of the likely user profile and the needs the object is meant to fulfill. The act of designing involves conjecture about how a future user will interact with something that does not yet exist. The success of a design will therefore depend to some extent on how well the designer “knows” the users and their needs. Industrial design education commonly includes study of ergonomics and marketing. These two fields of activity contribute some types of knowledge, and methods of enquiry, about users and consumers. At the same time, the goal of product usability is being added to with notions of user experience that include emotion and pleasure. Debate about the philosophical position of design research is demonstrably vigorous but its market value is often not quantified and mostly emphasised with academic arguments. It is not surprising that terms and concepts of design research feature just as frequently around undergraduate study as postgraduate study. As a result, this paper reached a conclusion that design studies, which take more various, plural and complicated form than the past concept of design, now must be understood in a whole new scholarly viewpoint. Design thus becomes one of the representative scholarly filed that characterizes the present, therefore a quintessential system of knowledge needed to judge the present to live.