Design is a fundamentally important topic in disciplines ranging from the more commonly associated fields of engineering, information technology and architecture, to emerging areas in the social sciences and life sciences.

One of the foundations for change in our society comes from designing. Its genesis is the notion that the world around us either is unsuited to our needs or can be improved. The need for designing is driven by a society's view that it can improve or add value to human existence well beyond simple subsistence. As a consequence of designing, the world that we inhabit is increasingly a designed rather than a naturally occurring one. In that sense it is an "artificial" world. Designing is a fundamental precursor to manufacturing, fabrication, construction or implementation. Design research aims to develop an understanding of designing and to produce models of designing that can be used to aid designing.

Design research can be carried out in variety of ways. It can be viewed as largely an empirical endeavor in which experiments are designed and executed in order to test some hypothesis about some design phenomenon or design behavior. This is the approach adopted in cognitive science. The results of such research can form the basis of a computational model. A second view is that design research can be carried out by positing axioms and then deriving consequences from them. If the axioms can be mapped onto design situations then the consequences should follow. This is the approach adopted in mathematics and logic and forms the basis of a small but powerful area in design research. A third view, and the most common one in the computational domain, is that design research can be carried out by conjecturing design processes, constructing computational models of those processes and then examining the behaviors of the resulting computational systems.

The conference theme of design computing and cognition recognizes not only the essential relationship between human cognitive processes as models of computation but also how models of computation inspire conceptual realizations of human cognition.

This conference series aims to provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of state-of-the-art and cutting edge research and developments in design computing and cognition.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Agents in design
Artificial intelligence in design
Biologically-inspired design
Collaborative design
Cognitive theories applied to design
Computational theories applied to design
Creative design
Design in practice
Digital media in design
Evolutionary approaches in design
Games and design
Human cognition in design
Learning from human designers
Machine learning in design
Multi-modal design
Situated computing in design
Virtual environments in design
Visual and spatial reasoning in design
Attendees are invited to participate in the conference in the following ways:

Submit a full-length paper on completed research relating to design computing and cognition.
Submit a poster describing ongoing research; there will be time for oral presentations of posters.
Submit a proposal for a half-day workshop on a topic related to design computing and cognition.
Researchers from all fields employing computation and or cognition in design are invited to participate.