Explorative Investigation of Intuition in Design Activity

Intuition is within our everyday life. Every human being is intuitive whether they recognize it or not; it is not an option but an integral part of our cognition. Even though it is impossible to deny its presence in design activity, difficulties arise in describing its mystery. Intuition, having a significant interdisciplinary research background, ranging from art and humanities to mathematics, management to business, philosophy to psychology, neuroscience to cognitive science, has been a major interest in numerous disciplines. Although it is highly ‘relatable’ with ‘design cognition’, the concept of intuition is not discussed at its premier level within the design research. Despite the rising interest, it still needs to be thoroughly investigated. The thesis in this sense, aims to discuss the concept of intuition and examine how designerly activities resonate with the well-known theories on intuition. Inspired by Sinclair’s (2011) ‘integrated framework of intuition’, this study aims to conceptualize a framework, then identify intuitive functions as direct matching, associative matching, incremental synthesis and radical synthesis. Those theoretical assumptions are then tested with an exploratory study by tracing the design behaviors of novice and expert designers. By doing this, the thesis seeks to reveal ‘design moves’ that go hand in hand with the cognitive features of intuition. While intuition is believed to be a cognitive ability frequently associated with expert (experienced) professionals, this study aims to manifest it as a personal aspect where everyone experiences it in their own unique way. In a broader perspective, this study aims to contribute to the theory of intuition and thus provide an alternative perspective to the ‘unprincipled’ behaviors of the designer. In its essence, this study seeks to know what makes intuition integrally linked with design activity and why it is important to understand its presence. Keywords: Intuition, Tacit knowledge, Design Activity, Design Cognition, ‘Undisciplined Designerly Behavior’