An `AI in Design' View of Design
Methodology

Interactions

What kind of interactions influence the design process and in what way?

e.g., goal interactions, component interactions, causal knowledge, etc.

Discussion. The various components of the design or of the design process are hardly independent from each other. Components can be related through interface constraints, or the behavior of one of them can influence the behavior of another component. Satisfying one goal can sometimes reduce the possibility of achieving another goal, even though separately each of them is perfectly achievable. This kind of goal interaction is well known in planning. Interactions often accompany the result of the decomposition processes. It would be much easier to deal with the resulting elements if they would not influence each other. Other interactions propagate the result of one decision to other decision points.

Designs with some sort of built-in ``loop'' (e.g., feedback) lead to looping dependencies, or mutual dependencies, where A depends on B, and B depends on A (i.e., interdependence). This leads to a multi-phase design process (e.g., Rough Design first) or an iterative approach (e.g., refinement or redesign). In general, dependencies may span across the entire design.

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