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Acquiring design knowledge through design decision justification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2009

Ana Cristina Bicharra Garcia  and
H. Craig Howard
Ana Cristina Bicharra Garcia
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, U.S.A.
H. Craig Howard
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, U.S.A.
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Abstract

Currently design documentation rarely records the designer's decision process or the reasons behind those decisions. This paper describes an effort to improve design documentation by having the computer act as an intelligent apprentice to the designer to capture the rationale during the design process. The apprentice learns about the features that make a specific case different from the standard. Whenever the designer proposes a design action that differs from the apprentice's expectations, the interface will ask for the designer for justifications to explain the differences. Later queries for design rationale are answered using a combination of the apprentice's domain knowledge and the designer-supplied justifications. The apprentice model is being implemented in a prototype system called ADD (Augmenting Design Documentation). The initial focus of the work is on HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) design. Our starting point for implementing the apprentice model is observing how people develop HVAC system designs and then explain those designs.

Type
Research Article
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 59 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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