Strategic Knowledge in Compositional Design Models

Abstract

Abstract. In interactive design processes, strategic decisions are made at different levels. To support designers, design support systems need to include corresponding strategic knowledge at these levels. In this paper three levels of strategic interaction and strategic knowledge are identified within a compositional model of design. These levels are identified in reasoning about the manipulation of requirements and their qualifications, reasoning about the manipulation of design object descriptions and reasoning about design process co-ordination. Instances of strategic knowledge illustrate the different levels. Keywords:Meta-knowledge, Representing Strategic Knowledge, Compositionality 1.INTRODUCTIONDesign is a complex process, in which different types of knowledge play distinct roles. One aspect of the design process is the nature of requirements and their qualifications (e.g., preference relations between requirements). A second aspect is the nature of a specific design description and its properties. A third aspect is the nature of the domain of design objects. A fourth aspect is the nature of a design process itself, the strategies employed to reason about requirements, design descriptions and their interaction. Each of these aspects of design entails different types of knowledge and different types of reasoning behaviour. Therefore, in interactive design, a design support system should support a designer on the basis of knowledge of requirements and their qualifications, knowledge of design descriptions, knowledge of the object domain and knowledge of the strategies that designers employ.In interaction with a design support system, a designer changes requirements and qualifications of requirements during the design process. For example, a threshold level set in one requirement may be lowered or the qualification of another requirement is changed from 'hard' (meaning that the requirement must be satisfied) into 'soft' (meaning that the requirement is preferred to be satisfied). A decision to implement changes is made on the basis of many factors, including existing (partial) design object descriptions and an increasing level of understanding of specific aspects of the design problem. Which requirements are changed, when and how, depends on the overall design strategy followed. These changes in requirements, together with the overall design strategy, have impact on the different types of strategies in the subsequent design process. The overall design strategy affects the choice of more specific strategies. Modelling such strategies requires strategic reasoning, strategic knowledge, and strategic user interaction of different types and levels (see also [2,3,4,5]).This paper distinguishes different levels of reasoning, knowledge and interaction, and shows how these levels can be modelled at different meta-levels within a compositional architecture. The use of meta-levels for this purpose is also a characteristic of both Hori's * Please note that this paper is an extended version of [1]. and Oshuga's approach ...

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