The Essence of Good Design

Responsive Cohesion

Written by a designer and two philosophers, this short, highly illustrated book explores the idea that responsive cohesion is the essence of good design.

Written by a designer and two philosophers, this short, highly illustrated book advances the idea that responsive cohesion is the essence of good design.

Responsive cohesion refers to a state in which things hold together (or cohere) due to the mutual responsiveness of the features that constitute them. This contrasts with fixed cohesion (in which things hold or are held together in a more forced, constrained, or non-mutually responsive way) and discohesion (in which things dont hold together well or at all). The authors argue that responsive cohesion is the best form of organisation in general and, thus, the best guide to creating those deliberate forms of organisation we refer to as design. Moreover, this claim applies not only to individual examp