Interactive knowledge elicitation for application dependent feature evaluation supported by conditional attributed rewriting systems

According to the general design theory, a design process is a cyclic activity that transfers the model of the design object from the design specification to the design solution. During this activity experts in different phases of the production process (e.g. design, manufacturing, handling, etc.) cooperate to propose, evaluate and adapt, in a stepwise manner, the model to the working environment requirements. This cooperative methodology is general in that it was proved in different fields from aerospatial, to electronic, to mechanical. However each implementation is highly application-dependent. Our approach implements the general design approach allowing the design and implementation of specific support systems, and provides tools to customize the systems with rules and strategies depending on the specific design application. In this work we stress the interaction aspects which allow users to elicit their knowledge and to customize their own design system. The customization is based on the definition of the features that are significant for the specific field. Features for different fields are represented in terms of rewriting rules of a particular kind of conditional attribute rewriting system (CARW). The central components of a prototype implementation, of the proposed interactive system, are introduced and discussed together with examples of interactive rule definitions.