Design Rationale - Overview

Overview

A design rationale is the explicit listing of decisions made during a design process, and the reasons why those decisions were made. Its primary goal is to support designers by providing a means to record and communicate the argumentation and reasoning behind the design process. It should therefore include:

• the reasons behind a design decision,
• the justification for it,
• the other alternatives considered,
• the trade offs evaluated, and
• the argumentation that led to the decision.

Several science areas are involved in the study of design rationales, such as Computer Science Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Knowledge Management For supporting design rationale, various frameworks have been proposed, such as QOC, DRCS, IBIS, and DRL.