During the late 1990s, members of the engineering design research community articulated a growing recognition that decisions are a fundamental construct in engineering design. This position and its premise that the study of how engineering designers should make choices during the design represented the foundation of an emerging perspective on design theory called decision-based design (DBD). DBD provides a framework [1] within which the design research community could conceive, articulate, verify and promote theories of design beyond the traditional problem-solving view. As we define here:

Decision-based design (DBD) is an approach to engineering design that recognizes the substantial role that...