Design media for the cognitive designer

Work on media for design which are responsive to the cognitive processes of the human designer are introduced as a paradigm for research and development. Design media are intended to support the cognitive nature of design and, particularly, the exploitation of design knowledge in computational environments. Basic theoretical assumptions are presented which underlie the development of design media. A central assumption is that designers share common forms of design knowledge which can be formalized, represented, and employed in computational environments. Generic knowledge is proposed as one such seminal form of design knowledge. We then develop a cognitive model which relates to the internal mental representations, strategies and mechanisms of generic design. The paper emphasizes the theoretical foundations of design media. This theoretical discussion is then exemplified through case studies presenting current research for the support of visual cognition in design. We introduce an approach to design schema as a visual form of generic design knowledge. Secondly we present a conceptual framework for the support of schema emergence in visual reasoning in design media. Finally, some implications of schema emergence in design collaboration are presented and discussed.