Interacting with Design Alternatives

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This proposal asks the question: How can computational design systems better support design work? Specifically, it proposes that design work can be significantly enabled by explicit representation of and interaction with alternative solutions. Why is this important? Because designers work by creating and considering alternatives. Yet available computational design tools provide almost no such functionality, thus forcing awkward workarounds that are both ineffective and inefficient.******The proposed research will work with a kind of computational design tool known as parametric modeling systems (PCAD), for two reasons. First, such tools are at the forefront of design tool development, so there are skilled users in the world working with them. Second, such tools provide clear, simple and effective ways to represent alternatives. While extant PCAD systems theoretically define alternatives, their interfaces generally provide access to designs serially. My goal is to change this feature of PCAD interfaces to support exploration using alternatives.******My prior work has discovered representations and interactive techniques for working with design alternatives, and has defined the objectives for this proposal. Most research in the area employs automatic mechanisms for generating alternatives, in spite of well-known user preferences for actively and directly engaging with choices. The research proposed here takes the view that direct user interaction with possibly large spaces of alternatives presents a difficult and challenging research and design problem that must be addressed, even in the context of automatic design generation. Our research program is thus to design, implement and validate several prototype systems for working with design alternatives. With each, we understand more about what works (and what does not work) in supporting design alternatives.******The research program comprises three steps: (1) Design interactive prototypes for design alternatives, consulting with professional users. (2) Implement, combining interactive prototypes with contemporary parametric tools. (3) Evaluate in real-world (design offices) and simulated real-world contexts (such as professional offices and extended workshops).******The proposed research ultimately aims to improve the ways that computers support designers by enabling the universal design strategy of trying more than one idea at a time.