CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A GENERAL DESIGN THEORY

Existing design theories are not used in enterprises because they are either to formal to be understood either they focused only on a specific aspect of design. This paper tentatively contributes to the development of a comprehensive design theory covering the mains aspects of design life cycle. The design activity considered is the commissioned design which is the most complex form in terms of interrelations between designer(s) and stakeholder(s). The paper, focusing on key concepts and definitions, will present the main design perspectives that must be considered by the theory. The functional perspective is detailed and a simplified example is given so as to illustrate the proposed approach. Related work is discussed and finally, at the end, conclusions are made and future work outlined.