Pragmatism-based methodological contributions to design

Abstract

The latest contributions to the discipline of design, made by both academic research and the implementation of product management, involve methodological proposals based on common concepts. User experience, practice and knowledge, among other aspects, lead to new ways of approaching design projects. These concepts are clearly connected with pragmatism and with the theories it develops and the application processes it proposes. For this reason, after discussing Peirce’s pragmatic framework as it applies to design, this paper presents a pragmatic proposal for the design of things based on the guidelines of semiosic processes. Such processes should allow one to grasp individuals’ acts towards things, the meaning conferred on them and their inter-relationship with social and cultural contexts, thus integrating the meaning of things into communication cycles.

KEYWORDS: pragmatism, semiosis, pragmatics, communication, design, methodology.