Data thickening: A new frontier in design cognition

The literature extensively discusses how designers utilize their cognitive abilities in the creative process, primarily leveraging context-specific, observational data. The vast availability of big data introduces new challenges to this, related to the integration of large datasets into the design process. Despite the rich body of research on design cognition, there has been a noticeable lack of studies addressing how different types of data influence design cognitive mechanisms. This article investigates how designers navigate heterogeneous data types (big/ thin and small/thick) within the creative process, introducing the concept of “data thickening,” a cognitive mechanism through which designers delve into problems to uncover their essence and bridge the problem-space with the solution-space.