Design is an activity consisting in specifying an artefact, given requirements that indicate one or more
functions that it must fulfil and/or objectives that it must satisfy (V
isser, 2004). The most common
conception of design problems is to consider them as “ill
-
structured” (Eastman, 1969; Simon, 1973). The
main characteristics of such problems are: many degrees of freedom in the problem’s initial state;
instability of design r
equirements and co
-
evolution of problem
-
solutions; multiplicity of acceptable
solutions and multiplicity of criteria; complexity and interdependency between design subtasks, which
leads, in collaborative design, to tightly coupled work and close interdepen
dencies (Olson & Olson,
2000). In terms of the cooperative work arrangements distinguished by Schmidt (1994), design typically
serves a generic function, which is the confrontation and combination of perspectives. It is a cooperative
work arrangement that
facilitates the application of multiple perspectives (conceptualisation of the field
of work) on a given problem, so as to match the multifarious nature of the field of w