Generating design activities through sketches in multi-agent systems

This study describes a multi-agent system that acts as a mediator between the designer and the information environment. The system enables designers to locate and retrieve information from distributed resources. There are three types of agents in the proposed model. The duser agentsT consist of designers, engineers, and technicians. The dinformation agentsT include various knowledge domains as legislation, codes, previous cases, expert domains. The dcommunication agentsT that identify and match agents are based on the goals and agentTs interest. The communication agents working over the Web use sketches as a collaboration medium in the conceptual phase of the design process. The results of the empirical study showed that the design domain and variables; and design strategies and activities are not independent of each other. The quality of a project increases as the communication increases among collaborators during the conceptual design phase and the Internet provides a suitable medium for communication through sketches. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.