Beyond the macho approach of artificial intelligence: empower human designers - do not replace them

Designers deal with ill defined and wicked problems that are characterized by fluctuating and conflicting requirements. Traditional design methodologies that are based on the separation between problem setting (analysis) and problem solving (synthesis) are inadequate for the solution of these problems. The supporting of design with computers requires a cooperative problem-solving approach that empowers designers with integrated, domain-oriented, knowledge-based design environments. The paper describes the motivation for the latter approach, and introduces an architecture for such design environments. It focuses on the integration of specification, construction, and a catalogue of prestored design objects in those environments to illustrate how such integrated design environments empower human designers. The Catalog Explorer system component, which is described in detail, assists designers in the location of examples in the catalogue that are relevant to the task at hand, as partially articulated by the current specification and construction. Users are thereby relieved of the tasks of forming queries or navigating in information spaces. The last part of the paper discusses the relationship of the work with the conceptual framework developed by Donald Schon.

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