A Rationale-based Model for Architecture Design Reasoning

1.2. Research motivations and research questions
1.2.2 Research questions and research approach
Argumentation-based design rationale methods have mostly focused on design rationale
deliberation but they have largely omitted the relationships with design elements. These
methods are ineffective in the capture and communication of design rationale [139]. Given
these shortcomings, we aim to investigate the following questions in this thesis to provide
some improvements:
• In order to establish the usefulness of this research, the following background questions
have been investigated:
– Is design rationale important in architecture development?
– Is design rationale important in system maintenance?
– What is the current state of practice of design rationale in the software industry?
• How to improve the representation of design rationale for architecture development?
• How to implement traceability between requirements, architecture design elements
and design rationale?
• How to quantify and estimate change impact analysis using architecture design elements
and design rationale?
Since these research questions are inter-related, they need to be examined together
in a holistic way. Our research approach is to first establish the importance of design
rationale for this work to be meaningful. The perception that design rationale is useful
is supported only by anecdotal evidence. Empirical evidence is thus required to establish
that design rationale is indeed useful for architecture design and maintenance. We also
need to determine what are the key elements in design rationale. To this end, we have
conducted a survey involving architects and designers in the Asia Pacific region to study
the usefulness and applications of design rationale.
Secondly, we analyse the implementation issues that exist in current design rationale
methods. Using the analysis as a guideline, we designed the AREL representation scheme
to overcome those issues. We then validate the AREL method using an empirical study to
compare the effectiveness of AREL with traditional design specifications. Finally, we study
the impact analysis and the traceability aspects of design rationale to propose methods
for their applications. We use a case study based on an electronic payment system to
demonstrate the design rationale applications.
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