TABLE OF CONTENTS When we engage in the actual work of design, we often doubt if the way we make our decisions is acceptable or if there are any better solutions. Examining past designs by others also leads us to questions like why this object is built that way or how the designer worked out the structure. When you are a novice designer, or even if you are an experienced one boldly entering a design field new to you, you have no idea where to start, what parameters are fixed, which are free for you to choose, and in what sequence you can determine them.
All these questions relate to the mental process during design, and especially to the process of making decisions. The designer has to do the following for himself:
Understand how the mind makes judgments, where such processes are positioned, and how to proceed from where he is.
By knowing how others made decisions, understand the overall picture of applicable technology and clarify its relation with the designer's own judgments (Chapter 3 goes into the details of this process, which one can only carry out through the transfer of technology).
Grasp the overall picture of the design process, that is the sequence of determining matters including what the goal (functional requirement) and conditions (constraints) are, so that he can apply them to his own activities (design).
What, then, does it mean to "make a decision"? Instead of a...
