PPK: a method for recording and analyzing software design processes

Abstract

The authors propose a method for recording and analyzing actual design processes, which is called the problem-product-knowledge (PPK) method. This method consists of two parts: a method for recording design activities and a framework for organizing the record. The recording method allows designers to record their activities easily, and the framework allows analysts to organize a record into a design process description and provides two different views of a design process: a problem solving process and a product generating process. The PPK model can be considered as a tool which analysts can use to construct a tree (or dag) of the designer's activity in a bottom-up manner. This tree/dag includes abstraction of both the problem-solving process and the product generating process. Such an abstraction greatly enhances the understandability of the design.<>