Diagrammatics: Design Intelligence System, Methodology, and Strategy in Design Research and Science

Abstract

The term Design Intelligence System, Methodology, and Strategy indicates a new digital modality of architecturally constructed and visualized diagrammatic research framework and environment. Aiming to facilitate, articulate, and support any kind of documentary, scientific, and creative investigative practice with large amounts of data in a formalized way, DI system, methodology, and strategy have been proposed for consideration to be included into the fields of Design Research and Design Science. It has been argued that they can offer a specific response to various research requirements and make a contribution at the level of methodology, instrumentation, and research strategy. Beside the control and guidance of data-operations in line with research subjects and questions, the system preserves design research procedures and dynamics of problem-solving and decision-making as formal inscription, or information-architecture, enabling one to visualize maps and lines of inference and connectivity between different information and arguments, and to acknowledge main issues in delivering a proof and carrying out valid reasoning. Regarding the fact that, alongside extensive use as a means of artistic exploration, this kind of digital framework, formalization, and system has not been substantially questioned as a means of reliable and functional scientific research in the targeted Design Research and Design Science fields, the paper will address these issues through comments on the system’s attributes, arguments, relevance, and contributions, and analysis of the performed test-studies, their development stages, and the system’s determinants, which have led to its final eleven criteria-form. The field of Diagrammatics has been proposed as a broader context due to the Design Intelligence System’s central diagrammatic properties and modes of operation.