Perceptiveness at the Position of Approach, Strategy, Method and Technique in Design Process (A Case Study: Kari Jormakka)

The design process includes the steps that the designer walks through to reach a solution for the design problem. In addition to finding ideas and concepts in the design process, designers take other steps encompassing choosing the approach, the strategy, the method and the technique. The objective of this study was to examine the position of approach, strategy, method and technique in the design process. As a case study, Kari Jormakka’s classifications were chosen for analysis. The reason why these classifications were selected was that the terms were not employed properly by Jormakka. The nature of this study was qualitative. The comparative research method was used for comparing experts’ ideas regarding the technical terms and logical reasoning method was applied for data analysis. The main research question was: What is the correct position of the terms approach, strategy, method, and technique in design process? The findings highlighted that the steps of design process can be categorized from macro to micro from approach to technique. On this basis, approach could be defined as people’s belief on an issue while strategy was recognized as part of approach. Method was defined as the way of achieving the goal that can be implemented through different techniques. It seems that, in Jormakka’s classifications, the term method was used instead of strategy and approach on multiple occasions, and none of the seven main sets presented by Jormakka fell under the term method; rather, they were more distinct on the basis of strategies and approaches.