[DanI-S]

Building a product is composed of two (blurry) stages: creating something that solves a problem, and adapting that solution to suit the person who will be using it.

Arguably, without design, there is no product - by making decisions that are necessary to take something from paper into reality, you are going through a process of design.

Design is most acknowledged in consumer goods, but it is present everywhere. Imagine you are building a widget that forms part of the internal mechanism of a space probe. It will likely only be seen or touched by a few technical people, it probably doesn't need visual appeal, but you must still design it to be feasible to manufacture and convenient to handle during assembly.

You will have to make decisions above and beyond its basic function - does the form fit the assembly worker's perceived model of what it does? Can it be held in human hands safely and without risking damage? Would any damage or incorrect installation be visually evident?

There is a false dichotomy between engineering and design. Modern technology is closing the conceptual gap. Whilst we need a certain degree of specialization, I strongly believe there should be no such thing as a 'pure' engineer or designer. If we want to create usable tools, we all need to know a little of both.

[tedkimble]

I enjoy the discussion between engineering and design.

I used to think of myself as an engineering-type person. I engineered solutions. Indeed, my undergraduate education was in math and physics. But then I began a lengthy graduate design education in architecture and, in the process, began to design solutions. I had become a design-type person.

Yet when I reflected on these two types of tasks -- engineering and design -- I realized they were not different types of tasks at all. Rather, engineering and design are two different approaches to the singular task of creation: design is creation in which decisions are based primarily upon qualitative metrics; engineering is creation in which decisions are based primarily upon quantitative metrics. I was instead simply a creative-type person, just one with an ability to approach problems with both engineering and design eyes.

Perhaps my most important observation is that engineering and design are fundamentally more similar than different. And by improving your abilities in either, you are improving your abilities at that which is similar: the creative process itself.