Why do computers need to understand design diagrams?
Diagrams play an important role in design practice. Designers draw diagrams to explore ideas and solutions in the early, conceptual phases of design. They use diagrams as objects to think about design concerns (Laseau, 1980) and to record their ideas (Graves, 1977). Designers find it hard to “think without a pencil” (Lawson, 1994) and “must interact with the drawing” (Herbert, 1993). Several design studies discussed the connection between design drawing and design thinking. They argued that design drawing and verbal protocols are related (Eastman, 1968) and complementary (Akin & Lin, 1995). Designers “see information” from drawing to refine their ideas (Suwa & Tversky, 1996) ; they “move” after seeing (Schön & Wiggins, 1992) , and they operate between “seeing as” and “seeing that” modalities (Goldschmidt, 1991). Many computer aided design systems have been built to support design by giving designers advice such as cases, suggestions and simulation. A problem with these systems is that
