It does not limit its inquiry to prescriptive definitions of what design is supposed to be, but instead it aims to understand (and study) the possibilities of what design can achieve by using various methodologies to analyze the delineations and synergies between academic inquiry, design practice and critical theory. Design Studies analyzes how different modes of contemporary practice are rethinking design to propose and realize alternative futures using approaches such as those conventions listed under design as well as:  Design Studies asks us to think about the meaning of design. It studies the influence of designers and the effects design has on citizens and the environment. Victor Margolin distinguishes a degree in Design from a degree in Design Studies by saying that “the former is about producing design, while the latter is about reflecting on design as it has been practiced, is currently practiced, and how it might be practiced.” Design Studies urges to rethink design as a process, as a practice, and as a generator or products and systems that gives lives meaning and sustains our economic and political systems. Design thinking invites to explore the complexities inherent to the task of thinking about design. Design Studies is concerned with the relationship between design and gender, design and race, and design and culture. It studies issues such as ethics, sustainment (social and environmental) and works with concepts such as agency and the artificial. Design has the capacity of structuring life in certain ways and thus design should result in the greater good for individuals and society but it doesn't always do so. Ethics deals with how our actions affect others. Design Studies sees ethics as central to design. Tony Fry, a leading figure in Design Studies claims, “Design is quintessentially an ethical process but despite this recognition that ethics is integral to design in many ways, design ethics remains ‘massively underdeveloped and even in its crudest forms remains marginal within design education.” It is important to involve ethics in the design process, especially as the world we inhabit is increasingly becoming artificial. Clive Dilnot's essay, "Ethics in Design –" "Ten Questions""," explores why we need ethics in design, what is the relationship between design and ethics. Dilnot writes that ethics should as a responsibility, as the ability of the designer to address the public as citizens and not as consumers or as the infusing of “humane intelligence” into the made environment, assume the possibility of truly human – humane, sustainable ways or making and remaking the world. Clive Dilnot goes further and clarifies that the artificial is by no means confined to technology.