This is such an important issues for this site - defining what design is - that I've been struggling with it for some time; so it's not finished. As a placeholder, here are some fairly randomly chosen definitions of design that I think illustrate quite how difficult it is to define design, in any area, leaving aside an immature, rapidly changing area such as learning design.

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I like the definitions of design mentioned in this article. They include:

"The flow of events to produce a desired effect"

"Design moves things from an existing condition to a preferred one"

"Design is the creation of form"

In "Serious Creativity", while criticising simplistic, step by step approaches to design, Edward de Bono makes the comment that “unfortunately, design is not just the putting together of elements in a sort of additive way”.

In this paper, Janis Norman says that "design thinking is an inventive process, through which problems are identified, solutions proposed and produced, and the results evaluated". My experience is that very few designers of learning resources think in terms of solving the right problems. They think the problems they face are all about converting content or "delivering" knowledge; actually what they do is all about changing the learner and solving their performance problems.

In this paper, on Situated Instructional Design, the author says: “Consider what it means to design something (e.g., to fashion something from a well-developed plan). Instructional Design shares with all design activities the challenge of creating something that accomplishes a given purpose within the constraints and parameters of the situation."