SGER: A Theory of Design Decisions

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Abstract

0741584 Erwig, Martin Oregon State University This research starts from the observation that any design process essentially consists of making design decisions and that any designed artifact is ultimately the embodiment of a set of such design decisions. The PIs will develop a theory of design decisions and based on the theory, a design-by-example methodology. Design decisions will be mathematically formalized as operations on attribute sets, which are used to represent the possibilities of the designed artifact along multiple dimensions. Groups of attributes can be combined into hierarchically structured and reusable design spaces. An important aspect is the explicit representation of design contexts to capture design constraints and external requirements properly. Design spaces can be further composed and modeled by relating design decisions to other design spaces and by integrating them with design contexts through constraints. In this model any design will be represented as a point in the design space, and ?design by example? means to navigate from one point to another by reversing design decisions and replacing them with different ones. The broad impacts of this research include the application of the design theory to real application environments. A major challenge will be to demonstrate that the proposed design methodology can be successfully applied in practice and that the developed theory provides insights that support real-world design tasks. The PIs will perform exploratory research to establish a set of important real-world scenarios and example projects that can serve both as an evaluation testbed and as a guide when developing the theory. Letters of intent to participate in the research are included in the proposal from companies in the aerospace industry and NASA. This research will also have a positive impact on the education of students that either directly participate in this project or will be exposed to the research through graduate level courses. Moreover, educational outreach will include high school students that participate as summer interns.