D0401 Recommendations for Design Aid Approaches and Technologies

Deliverable D0401 presents and justifies the IRIS approach to the Design Support Environment (DSE) and provides a first view of its conceptual, functional and technical architectural elements. In order to justify this approach, there is a need to review a wide range of work related to 'Design for All' ('DfA'). This task is still work in progress for the project; however, an overview of this work is given in order to position the IRIS DSE into the landscape of other relevant initiatives. The IRIS approach for identifying and formulating the designer support architecture is described at three levels: conceptual, functional and technical. The IRIS conceptual architecture presents the basic concepts of the IRIS design support environment including the basic entities acting in the system and the purpose of their participation. The IRIS functional architecture presents the basic functions of the design support environment in manner independent of technology. The IRIS technical architecture presents the technological design of the design support environment according to the constraints imposed by the conceptual and functional analysis, as well as from the current state of the art on Internet technologies, recommendations and tools. Keyword list: