This paper takes a narrative seam through the design discipline, attempting to explain how design methodology, one of the three types of Nigel Cross' designerly ways of knowing, has changed over the 40 years of Design Studies. Specifically, the paper identifies the point when a ‘social turn’ in the discipline occurred, allowing more nuanced and critical studies of designing, and shifting the balance from an objective (‘scientific’) perspective to one more based on relativist approaches. The paper concludes by noting the plurality of present-day study, arguably enabled by design thinking, and sketches what this holds for the future of the discipline. The references in the paper are mainly restricted to those published in, or strongly relating to, Design Studies.

本文贯穿设计学科的一个叙事缝，试图解释设计方法，这是奈杰尔·克罗斯（Nigel Cross）设计知识的三种类型之一，在40年的设计研究中如何发生了变化。具体而言，本文确定了学科发生“社会转折”的时间点，允许进行更细致和批判性的设计研究，并将平衡从客观（“科学”）角度转移到基于相对论方法的另一角度。本文在总结时指出了当前的研究，这些研究可以通过设计思维来实现，并概述了这对本学科未来的意义。本文中的参考文献主要限于在Design Studies中发表或与之密切相关的参考文献。