This is from a while back, but it was just raised as part of a discussion on the AIfIA list: Peter Merholz blogged a diagram from Vijay Kumar that describes the steps in a design process. To quote:
You start in the lower left-hand corner, getting to “know” the “real” – users and their contexts. Then you move up, abstracting from that knowledge to frame insights. Then you progress from knowing to making abstractions — concepts and plans. And then you end up by producing something tangible. In a more standard framework, the quadrants would read, clockwise from lower left, Research, Analysis, Synthesis, and Implement. From: [Column Two]