Designing or Planning? - Cognitive foundations for design aiding

This paper considers the cognitive aspects of designing. We compare these aspects to those of the (hierarchical) planning process; a process which is of common interest for Cognitive Psychology (CP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We show that both processes can be analyzed using similar key notions and they both have the same essential characteristics. Therefore, we establish a cognitive equivalence between the two processes. We discuss the implications of such an equivalence, emphasizing three main points. First, the equivalence provides a framework in which to join research eorts coming from design research, AI and CP, to the benefit of all the three fields. Second, it oers the possibility to propose a model of the design process based on the Hierarchical Task Networks (HTN) Planning formalism of AI. As discussed in the paper, such a model would have solid theoretical background and can provide sound foundations for design aiding tools. Third, such a model would facilitate, together with the results established in this paper, interactions between design research and Decision Aiding Sciences.

[1]  Terence Love,et al.  Philosophy of design: a meta-theoretical structure for design theory , 2000 .

[2]  Roger C. Schank,et al.  SCRIPTS, PLANS, GOALS, AND UNDERSTANDING , 1988 .

[3]  John S. Gero,et al.  Knowledge-Based Design Systems , 1989 .

[4]  Austin Tate,et al.  O-Plan: The open Planning Architecture , 1991, Artif. Intell..

[5]  Vincent Chapel,et al.  La croissance par l'innovation intensive : de la dynamique d'apprentissage à la révélation d'un modèle industriel le cas tefal , 1997 .

[6]  Alexis Tsoukiàs,et al.  An explicative model of ‘public’ interorganizational interactions , 1993 .

[7]  Kutluhan Erol,et al.  Hierarchical task network planning: formalization, analysis, and implementation , 1996 .

[8]  S. Sivaloganathan,et al.  A Survey of Design Philosophies, Models, Methods and Systems , 1996 .

[9]  Austin Tate,et al.  Generating Project Networks , 1977, IJCAI.

[10]  Petra Badke-Schaub,et al.  Historical background and aims of interdisciplinary research between Bamberg, Darmstadt and Munich , 1999 .

[11]  Stephen T. Polyak,et al.  Applying Design Space Analysis To Planning , 1998 .

[12]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Regaining the lead in manufacturing , 1994 .

[13]  P M Todd,et al.  Précis of Simple heuristics that make us smart , 2000, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[14]  Earl D. Sacerdoti,et al.  Planning in a Hierarchy of Abstraction Spaces , 1974, IJCAI.

[15]  James A. Hendler,et al.  Analyzing External Conditions to Improve the Efficiency of HTN Planning , 1998, AAAI/IAAI.

[16]  Marie des Neiges Baudry de Vaux,et al.  Christophe Midler, L'auto qui n'existait pas : management des projets et transformation de l'entreprise, Paris, Interéditions, 1996 (2e éd.) , 2001 .

[17]  Tim Smithers,et al.  Creativity and design as exploration , 1993 .

[18]  David E. Wilkins,et al.  Domain-Independent Planning: Representation and Plan Generation , 1984, Artif. Intell..

[19]  Rüdiger von der Weth.  Design instinct?—the development of individual strategies , 1999 .

[20]  John S. Baras,et al.  Generating and evaluating designs and plans for microwave modules , 2000, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing.

[21]  Kurt M. Marshek,et al.  A Comparative Analysis of Techniques in Engineering Design , 1996 .

[22]  Nigel Cross,et al.  Natural intelligence in design , 1999 .

[23]  John S. Gero,et al.  Creativity, emergence and evolution in design: concepts and framework , 1996 .

[24]  Ashok K. Goel,et al.  Functional representation as design rationale , 1993, Computer.

[25]  Satyandra K. Gupta,et al.  Generating redesign suggestions to reduce setup cost: a step towards automated redesign , 1996, Comput. Aided Des..

[26]  Austin Tate.  Towards a Plan Ontology , 1996 .

[27]  Bernard Roy,et al.  Decision science or decision-aid science? , 1993 .

[28]  B. Roy,et al.  The European school of MCDA: Emergence, basic features and current works , 1996 .

[29]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  The Sciences of the Artificial , 1970 .

[30]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  The Structure of Ill Structured Problems , 1973, Artif. Intell..

[31]  C. Midler.  L'auto qui n'existait pas : management des projets et transformation de l'entreprise , 1993 .

[32]  John S. Gero.  Design tools that learn , 1998 .

[33]  Bryan Lawson,et al.  How Designers Think , 1980 .

[34]  John S. Gero,et al.  Modeling Creativity and Knowledge-Based Creative Design , 1993 .

[35]  John S. Gero,et al.  Design Prototypes: A Knowledge Representation Schema for Design , 1990, AI Mag..

[36]  Eric J. Johnson,et al.  The adaptive decision maker , 1993 .

[37]  F. Bartlett,et al.  Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology , 1932 .