Chuck,
Actually there have been a group of researchers at Stanford that have
been doing that very thing for almost twenty years. The Center for
Design Research at Stanford has been exploring and developing various
tools to support design practice. More information can be found at
cdr.stanford.edu. Ken has pointed to their online list of
dissertations as a good resource for those interested in more details.
Actually a few start-up companies have been founded by alumni of this
center, trying to bring their research in Design Support to
market. Notable mentions are Onomy Labs, founded by Scott Minneman
and others, and Tidebreak, founded by Andy Milne and a few folks from
Terry Winograd's i-Room project in the HCI group at Stanford.
Cheers,
John
P.S. A disclaimer, I finished up my PhD at Stanford in March of this
year at the Center for Design Research so I'm familiar with their efforts.
At 04:56 PM 12/12/2005, Charles Burnette wrote:
>Dear List,
>
>This is worth reading and then pondering from the point of view of design -
>ie. how design information is produced, recorded and organized.
>
>http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/december7/field-120705.html
>
>We are not thinking well enough about how what we do can be captured,
>organized and analyzed. Perhaps some bright PhD candidate can "research"
>design from the standpoint of how information could and should be captured
>and organized as it is produced.
>
>I hope someone will take it on,
>
>Chuck
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