Design decision support for conceptual design

Design is a complex process depending on the information about the design task to perform. At the early design stages, usually only conceptual sketches and schematics are available, often rough and incomplete. Still at the early stages of design the most important decisions have to be taken. This leads to an information contradiction: almost no information s available and yet most of the decisions have to be taken. Integral Design Methodology is meant to support all disciplines in the design process with information about the tasks and the decisions of the other design disciplines involved in the design process. Supplying and exchanging explanations about the decisions taken during the design process improves understanding of the combined efforts by all the designer parties. In particular the use of the morphological overviews combined with the Kesselring method as a decision support tool helps to structure the early conceptual steps within the design process and make decisions taken during the design process more transparent for all the people involved. This method is used in different MSc theses at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven.