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Improving design and documentation by using partially automated synthesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2009

A. Cristina Bicharra Garcia ,
H. Craig Howard  and
Mark J. Stefik
A. Cristina Bicharra Garcia
Affiliation:
Departamento de Informatica, PUC-RIO, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
H. Craig Howard
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
Mark J. Stefik
Affiliation:
Information Systems and Technology Laboratory, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Rd., Palo Alto, CA94304
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Abstract

One of the products of engineering, besides constructed artifacts, is design documentation. To understand how design participants use documentation, designers and typical documentation users were interviewed and protocols were taken of them both creating and using design documentation. The protocols were taken from realistic projects of preliminary design for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC). The studies of document creation and use revealed three important issues: (1) design participants not only look up design facts; they frequently access documents to obtain information about the rationale for design decisions; (2) the design rationale that they see often is missing from the documents; and (3) design requirements change frequently over a project life cycle so that design documents are often inconsistent and out of date. Recognizing these documentation issues in design practice, a new approach was developed in which documents are no longer static records, but rather interactive design models supporting a case. The feasibility of the approach was demonstrated by constructing a running system and testing it with designers on realistic problems. The costs and benefits of creating and using documentation of design rationale also were analyzed. In particular, the active documents approach was evaluated for a routine, preliminary design in domains where community practice is widely shared and largely standardized. The approach depends on the feasibility of creating a parametric design model for the design domain.

Keywords

Design RationaleDesign DocumentationActive DocumentsInteractive DesignComputer-aided DesignHVAC Design
Type
Articles
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Fall 1994 , pp. 335 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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