Visualization of design knowledge component relationships to facilitate reuse

Within the software development process, reuse at the requirements level has become an increasingly more compelling notion. Following a human-centric approach, this work focuses on both requirements and design solution reuse using a design knowledge repository. In recent years, many improvements have been made to increase reuse through design knowledge repositories, but retrieval of knowledge in the context of design activities continues to be a formidable challenge. We propose a new system, called CERVi, to browse a repository through visualization by exploiting relationships between units of knowledge (in our case, claims). These relationships are key to finding the most appropriate reusable knowledge based on design conditions. Testing shows that CERVi enhances the design knowledge selection process and helps users proceed through structured design decision making. Our approach would be most useful to those interested in unlocking the potential of design knowledge reuse.