In order to speak about the commonalities and differences between industrial and architectural design, we need a common framework that may capture both design fields. Practice-based descriptions have a long tradition, and are close to everyday reality of the fields, but they are too specific. The scientific study of design - design research - is a more recent development, which aims accurately to provide this framework. We discuss the current understanding of design, its limitations, and some observations related to the IDE+A cases which were analysed.