Selection and specification of building products: Implications for design managers

The small amount of published work reporting on investigations into how designers specify has indicated that specifiers' behaviour is conservative when it comes to specifying products that are new to them; they tend to look for alternatives only when forced to do so. Early work on the behaviour of designers found that they tend to use rules of thumb and knowledge gained from experience to make decisions, rather than constantly referring to reference information. Indeed, there is a small body of literature that argues for better management of the specification process due to its effect on the constructability, cost and durability of the completed building. Investigation of specifiers' behaviour in the design office comprised three interlinked pieces of research conducted using quantitative and qualitative methods. The primary focus was on the adoption of new products and the management of the specification process. The way in which designers make decisions and the subsequent development and realization of design intent is reported and discussed. The findings help to illustrate some of the pressures faced by specifiers in a busy design office. It also highlights some of the challenges facing design managers.