Making Sense of Design

Effective design is at the heart of everything from software development to engineering to architecture. But what do we really know about the design process? What leads to effective, elegant designs? The Design of Design addresses these questions.

These new essays by Fred Brooks contain extraordinary insights for designers in every discipline. Brooks pinpoints constants inherent in all design projects and uncovers processes and patterns likely to lead to excellence. Drawing on conversations with dozens of exceptional designers, as well as his own experiences in several design domains, Brooks observes that bold design decisions lead to better outcomes.

The author tracks the evolution of the design process, treats collaborative and distributed design, and illuminates what makes a truly great designer. He examines the nuts and bolts of design processes, including budget constraints of many kinds, aesthetics, design empiricism, and tools, and grounds this discussion in his own real-world examples—case studies ranging from home construction to IBM's Operating System/360. Throughout, Brooks reveals keys to success that every designer, design project manager, and design researcher should know.

Table of Contents

I Models of Designing

Chapter 1 The Design Question

Chapter 2 How Engineers Think of Design—The Rational Model

Chapter 3 What’s Wrong with This Model?

Chapter 4 Requirements, Sin, and Contracts

Chapter 5 What Are Better Design Process Models?

II Collaboration and Telecollaboration

Chapter 6 Collaboration in Design

Chapter 7 Telecollaboration

III Design Perspectives

Chapter 8 Rationalism versus Empiricism in Design

Chapter 9 User Models—Better Wrong than Vague

Chapter 10 Inches, Ounces, Bits, Dollars— The Budgeted Resource

Chapter 11 Constraints Are Friends

Chapter 12 Esthetics and Style in Technical Design

Chapter 13 Exemplars in Design

Chapter 14 How Expert Designers Go Wrong

Chapter 15 The Divorce of Design

Chapter 16 Representing Designs’ Trajectories and Rationales

IV A Computer Scientist’s Dream System for Designing Houses

Chapter 17 A Computer Scientist’s Dream System for Designing Houses—Mind to Machine

Chapter 18 A Computer Scientist’s Dream System for Designing Houses—Machine to Mind

V Great Designers

Chapter 19 Great Designs Come from Great Designers

Chapter 20 Where Do Great Designers Come From?

VI Trips through Design Spaces: Case Studies

Chapter 21 Case Study: Beach House “View/360”

Chapter 22 Case Study: House Wing Addition

Chapter 23 Case Study: Kitchen Remodeling .

Chapter 24 Case Study: System/360 Architecture .

Chapter 25 Case Study: IBM Operating System/360

Chapter 26 Case Study: Book Design of Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution

Chapter 27 Case Study: A Joint Computer Center Organization: Triangle Universities Computation Center

Chapter 28 Recommended Reading

About the Author

Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., is Kenan Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology, for his work on IBM’s Operating System/360, and the A. M. Turing Award, for his “landmark contributions to computer architecture, operating systems, and software engineering.” He is the author of the best-selling book The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition (Addison-Wesley, 1995).