USING PATTERN LANGUAGES IN DESIGN ENGINEERING

Pattern languages may be a beneficial yet unexplored way to capture emergent know-how in design engineering. A pattern is a natural-language, context-dependent description of a solution to a class of problems, that is both generative and descriptive. This paper introduces patterns and discusses how they can capture know-how in design. A key feature of patterns is their form: the style of their composition and presentation. There is neither evidence to suggest the superiority of one pattern form over any other, nor reason to believe that any existent pattern form will be suitable for design engineering. The author therefore introduces a new pattern form that is extremely adaptable while remaining true to the intent of the pattern approach. Three patterns are given in their entirety to demonstrate the author’s form and suggest how patterns can capture and help communicate know-how. Proper evaluation can only be undertaken once enough patterns have been written and used that empirical data can be developed; this has not yet been done. However, early indications are that the pattern approach has good potential in design engineering