ECAI-2002 Conference Paper

[full paper]

Design as Interactions of Problem Framing and Problem Solving

Martin Dzbor, Zdenek Zdrahal

This paper introduces a conceptual model of framing in design. The proposed ‘recursive model’ takes into account a reflective nature of designing, and it is based on the interplay between two conceptually distinct knowledge sources – an explicit specification of a design problem and a solution to it. The approach is novel in the former investigated aspect that is presented as a semi-formal operation of framing, i.e. interpretation of a given problem using certain conceptual primitives. We argue that the interpretation of design problems has not enjoyed the same rigorous investigation as the problem solving received in both design theory and methodology. In this paper, we focus on the conceptual interaction of the aforementioned activities (problem specification vs. problem solving). Furthermore, we discuss two schemas following from the model and featuring refinement of design frame and problem re-framing.

Keywords: design, problem framing, nonmonotonic reasoning, knowledge-based systems

Citation: Martin Dzbor, Zdenek Zdrahal: Design as Interactions of Problem Framing and Problem Solving. In F. van Harmelen (ed.): ECAI2002, Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2002, pp.210-214.