Introduction

Abstract

Designing is question intensive. Experienced designers treat inquiry as an influential cognitive mechanism in their thinking. However, our formal understanding of the specifics of that mechanism, and at a higher level, the role of question asking during designing, is limited. The research presented in this book explores the issue from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The findings allow for the development of a question-centric design thinking model. The framework that forms the basis of the model characterizes the process of inquiry in design thinking at an operational level, relates that characterization to existing decision making theories by arguing for a duality between questions and decisions, and maps the proposed duality onto the broader context of the design process. The validity of the model is demonstrated empirically by the discovery of a correlation between the question asking processes of design teams and their performance.