Prescriptive Study: Developing Design Support

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on the third stage of DRM: the PS stage. It discusses how, starting with the results from DS-I or DS-II, one can proceed to develop a design support (i.e., knowledge, guidelines, checklist, methods, tools, etc.) in order to enhance, eliminate or reduce the influence of some of the critical factors found in DS-I or DS-II. Such a PS is a purposeful activity with the resulting support or its concept as the end product, and is, therefore, a design task in itself. The support is usually not a direct derivative of the findings from DS-I or DS-II. Creativity and imagination is required to develop effective and efficient design support. For this, a number of generic problem solving and development methods can be used.