
230 ◾ Software Designers in Action: A Human-Centric Look at Design Work
© 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
working memory failures. Most design researchers nowadays seem in general agreement
that design involves an adaptive combination of both structured and opportunistic pro-
cessing (cf. Visser, 1994). Nevertheless, one important aspect of the theoretical account of
design expertise espoused by Ball et al. (1997) that is of particular relevance to the present
analysis was that experts will oen tend to mix breadth-rst and depth-rst design (with
some opportunism present as well). According to this account, the preferred strategy of