Advancement in product design is usually made by building on previous experiences and learning from past successes and failures. However, knowledge transfer in the broad field of product design is often difficult to accomplish. Research has shown that successful component configurations, observed from existing products, can be dissected and stored for reuse; but few computational tools exist to...

  In this paper, authors tackle three very important questions that need to be answered if a theory of design is to be constructed. The first is what designers do, Which we attempt to illustrate with the help of case studies and theories of design practice. The second question is what guides designers. Here, authors try to present some of the proposed normative positions about design, to show t...

Object-Role Modeling (ORM) is a framework for modeling and querying information at the conceptual level. It comes to support the design of large-scale industrial applications allowing the users to model easily the domain. The reasoning on a conceptual schema enables to automatically detect relevant formal properties, such as inconsistencies or redundancies that cause a degradation of the qualit...

EXtensible Markup Language (XML) has emerged as the dominant standard in describing and exchanging data among heterogeneous data sources. XML with its self-describing hierarchical structure and its associated XML Schema (XSD) provides the flexibility and the manipulative power needed to accommodate complex, disconnected, heterogeneous data. The issue of large volume of data appearing deserves i...

In an audience driven approach to website design, the requirements of the different audiences are modeled as separated tiny conceptual schemas comparable to views. We present a new approach to integrate these conceptual views. The preparation for the integration is already done during the design phase itself. Semantic information about the concepts used during conceptual modeling is stored in a...

In this paper, we describe the theoretical framing, design, and user study of a whole body interactive environment called Springboard. Springboard supports users to explore the concept of balance in the abstract domain of social justice through embodied interaction. We present the foundational theory of embodied conceptual metaphor, focusing on the twin-pan balance schema, which can be enacted ...

Introduction Computer-aided tools are being increasingly used to support the design process. Most, however, are usable only in the latter stages of design and, even then, provide only limited support (Baya and Leifer 1996). Currently, no commercial computer-based design tool exists for, or has been developed with the sole intention of, supporting the interdisciplinary team during the conceptual...

The conceptual design of most computer-based information systems reflects a dualism of technology. During the development phase, part of the work-domain related knowledge is formalized and encoded in the software, making it difficult for users to reflect upon and use this knowledge. This design/use-dualism contributes to the deterioration of the interpretive flexibility of information systems. ...