The Idealized Design Process

Abstract

This chapter attempts to scientifically define important aspects of the design process including: the feasibility to design, the role of the designer in the design process, the human-machine interface, and the abilities of a human designer. The intuitive concept of the design process as a mapping from the desired function and constraints, called specifications, to the artifact description is formalized in this chapter by introducing the notion of an idealized design process. The function and attribute spaces are represented by propositional calculus (see Appendix A). The principle of design consistency; which, roughly speaking, states that small changes in specifications should lead to small changes in design (and vice versa) is formalized by introducing the notion of a continuous mapping of one closure space to another. The concept of a basis for the artifact and function spaces is introduced, and its relation with the principle of design consistency is explored.KeywordsFunctional PropertyFunction SpaceAttribute SpaceStructural DescriptionClosure SpaceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.