Modelling (pre-)Design Activities With a Multi-Stakeholder Perspective - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 183

• Process VI: transforms Re i into Re variables. The Re set is a bigger set of
variables. It can contain variables directly referable to a specific Re i such as
“Volume capacity ¼1 L” or other variables not explicitly considered in Re i ,
such as “height of the kettle < 300 mm”.
• Process VII: Re are interpreted to produce R i variables, as for instance “Height
of the kettle < standard scaffolds height”.
• Process VIII: transforms R i into F i variables such as “increasing water temper-
ature until boiling status”, “contain water”, etc.
In parallel, a process which concerns mainly the R i set and which derives the
subset R i can be conducted and consequently processes XI, XII, XII and XIV
definitively transform variables from the external word to the interpreted word of
F i ,S i , and B i variables. The other processes from the 4th to the 10th are maintained
as in the original model. Table 12.3 presents a partial list of exemplary processes of
each of the above-mentioned transformations. It is worth noticing that the purpose
of the table is not to provide an exhaustive specification for the design of a kettle,
but just to clarify the meaning of the added and revised processes occurring
according to the proposed extended FBS model.
12.5 Conclusions
The present paper aims at contributing to the growing scientific discussion about
needs identification and requirements specification by introducing an explicit
representation of these different elements of a design activity. Furthermore, it
highlights the importance of considering the needs that a product aims at fulfilling
in a multi-stakeholders perspective, i.e., by considering all the actors who are
involved in the product/service life from the purchasing phase to each stage of
use and disposal.
While many scholars debate about the importance of considering the multi-
faceted aspects of needs, as well some attempts exist to define design specifications
with multi-stakeholders lists of requirements, there are still no models supporting a
holistic representation of needs and their mutual relationships. Neglecting the
impact of multi-actor contexts and influence elements can actually kill the innova-
tion process even in the case of products with good potential. On the contrary,
mapping needs and formulating requirements with a robust and comprehensive
approach can be essential for adoption and diffusion processes, being it related to a
product or to a service, from mass production to made-to-order businesses.
Therefore, Needs Identification and Requirements Definition have to be consid-
ered as two essential and distinguished phases of a design activity, and needs have
to be contextualised with respect to their different owners.
The paper proposes an extension of the situated FBS model by Gero and
Kannengiesser that is suitable to address such a critical issue. Specifically, the
extended model proposes the explicit representation of a new type of variable,