This lecture aims to fill you in a bit on what design involves. Design can seem a very slippery topic. It seems to be all about natural talent, flair, vague subjective judgements, and the like. There is an element of truth here, but it is also possible to develop design skills and a solid understanding of design considerations. Design is slippery because it relates to the terrain of aesthetic judgement, or, in less technical terms, the sphere of taste.
Taste is much more a social and cultural phenomenon than people tend to recognise.
Just think of your own musical tastes. They are personal at one level, but they are also likely to be strongly shaped by current musical fashions, the tastes of your peers, the subcultures that you identify with, etc. The cultural theorist Bourdieu argues that taste is strongly class stratified. The 'Kwinana yob' with a taste for velvet Elvis carpets is not 'lacking in taste', rather his tastes do not correspond to middle and upper class aesthetic values. They are shaped by a different social milieu.