“Definition of design = Everyone designs who devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state.”

— Herbert A. Simon

Source: 1960s-1970s, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969, p. 130.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Definition of design = Everyone designs who devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferr…" by Herbert A. Simon?

Herbert A. Simon photo

Herbert A. Simon58

American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and p… 1916–2001

Related quotes

“If solutions could be offered within the existing system, there would be no need to design. Thus designers have to transcend the existing system. Their task is to create a different system or devise a new one. That is why designers say they can truly define the problem only in light of the solution. The solution informs them as to what the real problem is.”

Béla H. Bánáthy (1919–2003) Hungarian linguist and systems scientist

Source: Systems Design of Education (1991), p. 20

“How a designer gets from thought to thing is, at least in broad strokes, straightforward: (1) A designer conceives a purpose. (2) To accomplish that purpose, the designer forms a plan. (3) To execute the plan, the designer specifies building materials and assembly instructions. (4) Finally, the designer or some surrogate applies the assembly instructions to the building materials. What emerges is a designed object, and the designer is successful to the degree that the object fulfills the designer's purpose”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

Opening words of [No Free Lunch: Why Complexity Cannot be Purchased Without Intelligence, Lanham, Md., Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 0742512975, http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_nfl_intro.htm, Preface]
2000s

“Today, the problem is not to produce more so you can sell more. The fundamental question is that of the product's right to exist. And it is the designer's right and duty, in the first place, to question the legitimacy of the product, and that is how he too comes to exist. Depending on what answer he comes up with, one of the most positive things a designer can do is refuse to do anything”

Philippe Starck (1949) French architect and industrial designer

Starck, 2000

“… the organization chart will initially reflect the first system design, which is almost surely not the right one [… ] as one learns, he changes the design [… ]. Management structures also need to be changed as the system changes…”

Fred Brooks (1931) American computer scientist

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975, 1995)

“Amid a multitude of projects, no plan is devised.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 319
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

“One could describe Design as a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose.”

Charles Eames (1907–1978) American designer, half of duo the Eames

In answer of the question: What is your definition of Design?
Design Q & A with Charles Eames, 1972

“To a modern mathematician, design seems to be a second-rate intellectual activity.”

George Forsythe (1917–1972) Stanford University computer scientist

George Forsythe (1966) cited in: Peter Naur (1992) Computing: A human activity. p. 230

“Corporate strategy is the pattern of major objectives, purposes, or goals and essential policies and plans for achieving those goals stated in such a way as to define what business the company is in or is to be in and the kind of company it is or is to be. In a changing world it is a way of expressing a persistent concept of the business so as to exclude some possible new activities and suggest entry into others.”

Kenneth R. Andrews (1916–2005) Business scholar

Source: Quote, The Concept of Strategy, 1971, p. 28

“Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say
that we devise their misery. But they
themselves- in their depravity- design
grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

“A basic social arrangement in modern society is that the individual tends to sleep, play and work in different places with different co-participants, under different authorities, and without an over-all rational plan. The central feature of total institutions can be described as a breakdown of the barriers ordinarily separating these three spheres of life. First, all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same central authority. Second, each phase of the member's daily activity is carried on in the immediate company of a large batch of others, all of whom are treated alike and required to do the same thing together. Third, all phases of the day's activities are tightly scheduled, with one activity leading at prearranged time into the next, the whole sequence of activities being imposed from above by a system of explicit formal rulings and a body of officials. Finally, the various enforced activities are brought together into a single rational plan purportedly designed to fulfil the official aims of the institution.”

Erving Goffman book Asylums

Source: 1950s-1960s, Asylums, 1961, p. 5-6

Related topics