In the past I used to study design-processes in an educational context. I only recently started investigating them, with the help of Total Design, in a professional context. Almost immediately some important differences between both contexts of research emerged. These are:

• In design-education stress is being laid on single products, which are developed relatively loose from the context for which they are being made. In professional practice signs are developed that have to be used in the context for which they were designed .
• In education students learn their craft. Many professional skills and considerations are not jet internalised. The proper product of the design-processes that students go through is the skilled student, not the product. In professional settings this does not count.
• In professional practice the products are to be developed in a more complex and often ambiguous design setting.

Translated in semiotic terms the differences may be characterised in the following way: In education emphasis is laid on designing propositions, while in professional practice the primary focus is on arguments in which the signs have to play their role as contributing propositions. So, in educational practice the relation between sign and object is central, while in professional settings the interpretant is as important as the object.