Research Perspectives: The Anatomy of a Design Principle

This essay derives a schema for specifying design principles for information technology-based artifacts in sociotechnical systems. Design principles are used to specify design knowledge in an accessible form, but there is wide variation and lack of precision across views regarding their formulation. This variation is a sign of important issues that should be addressed, including a lack of attention to human actors and levels of complexity as well as differing views on causality, on the nature of the mechanisms used to achieve goals, and on the need for justificatory knowledge. The new schema includes the well-recognized elements of design principles, including goals in a specific context and the mechanisms to achieve the goal. In addition, the schema allows: (1) consideration of the varying roles of the human actors involved and the utility of design principles, (2) attending to the complexity of IT-based artifacts through decomposition, (3) distinction of the types of causation (i.e., deterministic versus probabilistic), (4) a variety of mechanisms in achieving aims, and (5) the optional definition of justificatory knowledge underlying the design principles. We illustrate the utility of the proposed schema by applying it to examples of published research

Data and knowledge-driven intelligent investment cognitive reasoning model

The modeling and analysis of information flow from various sources (e.g., analyst reports, news, and social media), and their impact on assets and investment decision- making, have drawn lots of attention. In this paper, we propose a new knowledge inference design framework that provides concrete prescriptions for developing systems capable of supporting knowledge-based investment decision-making. Our framework design incorporates the advantages of both knowledge graphs and symbolic reasoning engines through the concept of a dual system. On the other hand, it overcomes the weaknesses of traditional expert systems, saving time in the knowledge input process, reducing the introduction of errors, and achieving more comprehensive knowledge coverage to obtain better predictive performance. Moreover, our proposed design artifacts are of significant importance in addressing the issues of causality and interpretability in the literature

Explainable software systems: from requirements analysis to system evaluation

The growing complexity of software systems and the influence of software-supported decisions in our society sparked the need for software that is transparent, accountable, and trustworthy. Explainability has been identified as a means to achieve these qualities. It is recognized as an emerging non-functional requirement (NFR) that has a significant impact on system quality. Accordingly, software engineers need means to assist them in incorporating this NFR into systems. This requires an early analysis of the benefits and possible design issues that arise from interrelationships between different quality aspects. However, explainability is currently under-researched in the domain of requirements engineering, and there is a lack of artifacts that support the requirements engineering process and system design. In this work, we remedy this deficit by proposing four artifacts: a definition of explainability, a conceptual model, a knowledge catalogue, and a reference model for explainable systems. These artifacts should support software and requirements engineers in understanding the definition of explainability and how it interacts with other quality aspects. Besides that, they may be considered a starting point to provide practical value in the refinement of explainability from high-level requirements to concrete design choices, as well as on the identification of methods and metrics for the evaluation of the implemented requirements

Explainable software systems: from requirements analysis to system evaluation

The growing complexity of software systems and the influence of software-supported decisions in our society sparked the need for software that is transparent, accountable, and trustworthy. Explainability has been identified as a means to achieve these qualities. It is recognized as an emerging non-functional requirement (NFR) that has a significant impact on system quality. Accordingly, software engineers need means to assist them in incorporating this NFR into systems. This requires an early analysis of the benefits and possible design issues that arise from interrelationships between different quality aspects. However, explainability is currently under-researched in the domain of requirements engineering, and there is a lack of artifacts that support the requirements engineering process and system design. In this work, we remedy this deficit by proposing four artifacts: a definition of explainability, a conceptual model, a knowledge catalogue, and a reference model for explainable systems. These artifacts should support software and requirements engineers in understanding the definition of explainability and how it interacts with other quality aspects. Besides that, they may be considered a starting point to provide practical value in the refinement of explainability from high-level requirements to concrete design choices, as well as on the identification of methods and metrics for the evaluation of the implemented requirements

A Prototype Curriculum For The Study Of Software Management

The discipline of Software Management, which is a new and potentially meaningful direction for information technology (IT) education, is presented for the first time in this article.  Software Management is a curriculum model, which specifically addresses the productivity and quality issues that have arisen in IT.  It is distinguished from the traditional disciplines of Computer Science, Software Engineering and Information Science by its body of knowledge, which focuses explicitly on building strategic governance infrastructures rather than technical artifacts.  This article presents curricular recommendations for each traditional discipline and uses these to illustrate Software Management’s unique role and value.  It also presents a conceptual framework and justification, which will assist educators in curriculum development and design issues

Cultures of Sustainability: ‘Ways of doing’ cooking

In our research, we have been expanding our conceptual and methodological frames of reference as designers, in order to explore the complexity of factors involved in environmental sustainability and the consequent challenges posed for design research. In this paper, we discuss some of these issues in user-centered and sustainable design, drawing out and developing relations to concepts from other fields of study, such as the sociology of consumption and material culture. In order to better understand the role that (sustainable) design products might play within people’s everyday lives and lifestyles, we interpret and discuss notions of ‘socio-cultural practices’ of consumption and frame an approach to studying people’s ‘ways of doing’ with artifacts. We point to two examples from our previous research on designing for energy awareness and for sustainable bathing practices. A current study is presented in depth, in which families and singles, resident in The Netherlands but originating from different countries, have been observed and interviewed during preparation of a meal, eating and clearing up afterwards. Through studying and reflecting on the different ‘ways of doing’ cooking, we gained insights into how cooking and a range of associated practices and artifacts are deeply embedded in traditions, meanings and aspirations. Issues of environmental consumption, such as water, energy and waste, are at stake in such design research but, as we argue, so is attention and sensitivity to how these are interwoven in meaningful socio-cultural practices. The setup and findings are presented, as a point of departure for raising conceptual and methodological questions to be developed in future work

Design as communication in micro-strategy — strategic sensemaking and sensegiving mediated through designed artefacts.

This paper relates key concepts of strategic cognition in microstrategy to design practice. It considers the potential roles of designers' output in strategic sensemaking and sensegiving. Designed artifacts play well-known roles as communication media; sketches, renderings, models, and prototypes are created to explore and test possibilities and to communicate these options within and outside the design team. This article draws on design and strategy literature to propose that designed artifacts can and do play a role as symbolic communication resources in sensemaking and sensegiving activities that impact strategic decision making and change. Extracts from interviews with three designers serve as illustrative examples. This article is a call for further empirical exploration of such a complex subject

Rationale in Development Chat Messages: An Exploratory Study

Chat messages of development teams play an increasingly significant role in software development, having replaced emails in some cases. Chat messages contain information about discussed issues, considered alternatives and argumentation leading to the decisions made during software development. These elements, defined as rationale, are invaluable during software evolution for documenting and reusing development knowledge. Rationale is also essential for coping with changes and for effective maintenance of the software system. However, exploiting the rationale hidden in the chat messages is challenging due to the high volume of unstructured messages covering a wide range of topics. This work presents the results of an exploratory study examining the frequency of rationale in chat messages, the completeness of the available rationale and the potential of automatic techniques for rationale extraction. For this purpose, we apply content analysis and machine learning techniques on more than 8,700 chat messages from three software development projects. Our results show that chat messages are a rich source of rationale and that machine learning is a promising technique for detecting rationale and identifying different rationale elements.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. The 14th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR'17

OntoEng: A design method for ontology engineering in information systems

This paper addresses the design problem relating to ontology engineering in the discipline of information systems. Ontology engineering is a realm that covers issues related to ontology development and use throughout its life span. Nowadays, ontology as a new innovation promises to improve the design, semantic integration, and utilization of information systems. Ontologies are the backbone of knowledge-based systems. In addition, they establish sharable and reusable common understanding of specific domains amongst people, information systems, and software agents. Notwithstanding, the ontology engineering literature does not provide adequate guidance on how to build, evaluate, and maintain ontologies. On the basis of the gathered experience during the development of V4 Telecoms Business Model Ontology as well as the conducted integration of the related literature from the design science paradigm, this paper introduces OntoEng and its application as a novel systematic design method for ontology engineering

Sense and symbolic objects: Strategic sensemaking through design

This paper reports on an ongoing investigation into one aspect of the design thinking phenomenon, namely the use of designed artifacts — sketches, renderings, graphics, models and prototypes — as symbolic objects in strategy making and implementation. It examines the conceptual overlap between design and the strategic cognition perspective, which considers cognitive processes and structures involved in strategic decision making, particularly the phenomenon of sensemaking. It is primarily a theoretical exploration, but draws on two short testimonies from designers. The specific conceptual connection between design practice and strategic cognition theory is potentially valuable to business leaders and managers involved with innovation, design management and strategic decisions. Preliminary findings suggest sensemaking activities by designers generate innovative future concepts with far-reaching strategic implications; designed artifacts aid sensemaking and sensegiving by management in exploring new business opportunities and directions. This paper is an early draft of a fuller account to be published in 2013 (AIEDAM Special Issue, Spring 2013, Vol.27, No.2, Studying and Supporting Design Communication, Edited by: Maaike Kleinsmann & Anja Maier)