Kerr wrote of the black box of design decisions--that time when the "heart of an instructional solution first appears." Petroski writes of judgment as indispensable for engineering design decisions. Both instructional design and engineering are design sciences, yet engineering has a rich tradition of discussing and reflecting upon design decisions. Engineering shares a language by which they can discuss the decisions that underlay designs and, so may learn from failures and allow their practice to evolve. This paper suggests means by which instructional design may begin to develop a language of design. Design is depicted as a process involving three spheres. Sphere One--skills, Sphere Two--practice, and Sphere Three--application. By developing a language to discuss and reflect upon Sphere Two processes, practitioners may share their practice, learn from each other, and encourage the field to evolve so that we may meet the changing needs of a knowledge economy. Herein, a proposal to encourage the development and use of a language to discuss Sphere Two decisions is detailed and initial steps are explored. (Contains 1 figure.)