More than Semantics? Navigating the “Policy * Design” Concepts’ Landscape

Scholarship from the design discipline and policy sciences has produced rich empirical and theoretical knowledge on the intersection of policy and design. However, using concepts that pair “policy” and “design” in various ways, often with different meanings, can confuse practitioners and scholars alike. This confusion is further exacerbated by the sheer variety of online information, including peer-reviewed articles, books, reports, blogs, courses, and the websites of prominent scholars, practitioners, and policy actors. To address this, we analyze “Policy * Design” concepts from a Google Search Engine scraping tool and, in doing so, identify four distinct approaches: “policy design,” “design for policy,” “design in policy,” and “design policy.” The results are presented through issue mapping, and the content of these results is discussed. Finally, we suggest strategies for bridging the gap between “Policy * Design” definitions and then provide a preliminary description of these concepts.