User:Drfederico/sandbox/abductive-reasoning

Abductive reasoning
New ideas arise when a designer observes facts that do not fit existing conceptions. Because designers of novel solutions to ill-defined problems typically have a limited set of observations, conventional reasoning systems such as deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning are supplemented or replaced by abductive reasoning. This has been interpreted as a form of Peirce's innovative abduction. This design process starts by wondering not by deducing or inducing. Design Abduction is best interpreted as a method for arriving at testable hypotheses.

Designers often question their first premises of how a problem is even represented, and they use non-deductive modes of thinking such as analogies, ideation, and re-framing to infer possible solutions from the available information, their own experiences, and from the customer's/stakeholder's identified problems, "pains" and frustrations. They then generate hypotheses using the best information available, which often entails making an educated guess after observing a phenomenon for which there is no clear explanation. They test hunches until they can infer the best explanation (IBE) for the group of observations. An example of abductive reasoning would be when an apartment dweller returns home, she is greeted by the dog, enters the living room, and observes strips of newspaper all over the floor. She ‘abduces’ that the dog tore them up. But, unbeknownst to her, her roommate unexpectedly had decided to move out, and had torn up the paper for packing. The abduced dog theory was the likeliest until more information became available.

Abductive reasoning is useful in design thinking because it is the "logic of what could be". Deductive and inductive reasoning infer what must be, not what could be. As Roger Martin says, designers use abduction to generate ideas, challenge accepted explanations, and infer possible new worlds.