Introduction

When in 1993 Apple’s Donald Norman introduced the User-centered design, he not only shifted the focus towards the user of a product or service, but also permanently established the scientific approach to the design process. Today designers more than ever have to take into account the user’s values, motives, and experience of a design when deciding on a specific course of action for their projects. To complicate things further, hundreds of research papers are published annually, each of which sheds light on specialized aspects of the relation between user and design. The DSD meets the need for practical information that paves the way for the creation of psychologically appealing, meaningful design. With a logical classification architecture that taps into the innate human language and sign system, the DSD is a unique source of information and inspiration for highlighting intuitive creativity. It is the culmination of decades of study and research that synthesizes some of the findings and insights of anthropologists, philosophers, sociologists, neurologists, biologists, A.I. scientists, psychologists, marketing specialists, graphic designers, artists, architects, and product developers in a single logically consultative application. In its present form the application hosts around 1900 keywords connected to many design elements. The database further offers quotes from over 160 books and scientific research papers.

The paper “Design Semantics Database: Towards an analytical and logical approach for meaningful design” Michiels, I. was published in the AIC proceedings 2021. Download the full paper here.

About