The Ulm School of Design was a school in Germany that integrated design with science (including social sciences) and introduced new fields of study such as cybernetics, systems theory and semiotics into design education.

John E. Arnold wrote the book "Creative Engineering" in 1959, which distinguished four areas of design thinking.

Horst Rittel was one of the influential teachers at the Ulm School of Design.

The text states that J. C. Jones grouped 26 methods according to their purposes within a design process in this book.

Horst Rittel helped found the Design Methods Group at the University of California, Berkeley, which was a society focused on developing and promoting new methods especially in architecture and planning.

The Quality Function Deployment is a design method used to determine characteristics.

The text states that this association played a role in the development of systematic engineering design methods.

Design teaching at Ulm integrated design with science (including social sciences) and introduced new fields of study such as cybernetics, systems theory, and semiotics into design education.

The Design Methods Group is a society focused on developing and promoting new design methods, especially in architecture and planning.

Nigel Cross associated User Scenarios with the stage of Identifying Opportunities in the engineering product design process.