Observing Observations: the reflective use of research methods in a study of internal rhetoric

The research reported in this paper is in the domain of rhetoric in relation to design thinking. However, unlike many studies in design, this study concentrates on the process of a designers thinking rather than design process thinking. While the original research looked at both internal and external rhetoric (a designer's internal conversation and a desinger's conversation with others), this paper concentrates predminantly on the former. The significance of discussing rhetoric from this perspective is that it maintains a relation between experiential and intellectual knowledge, and it attends to, rather than removes uncertainty throughout the process of research. In doing so insight into design thinking as a methodology for dealing with complexity is provided.