DoD Ch. 9

     Chapter nine deals with user models and who really puts in the effort in the beginning of a design. Then Brooks talks about team design and the use of models in complex design and how several factors play into design models.  He goes on to talk about how sometimes facts about a product aren't known until the design is underway or almost finished.  This is why we "guess" or "postulate" attributes of design.  This assumptions will have to be defined in the end by the chief designer.  Brooks concludes the chapter by saying that more definite assumptions are better than vague assumptions.

DoD Ch. 8

     Brooks begins chapter eight describing the two sides of creating a complex design from a rationalist and empiricist point of view. Then he talks about how hard it is to design a perfect program in one try, nearly impossible. He continues on about how formal proofs of correctness work in software but not for other types of physical design. Then he writes about the several types of testing that is used instead of proofs for physical designs.  In conclusion, the more sophisticated the analysis and testing, the more complete and perfect a design is.

Conflict of Interest

        In the Drug article http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/21/drugs-industry-scandal-ben-goldacre , a drug, Reboxetine, was used to replace placebo pills.  The drug was published as being better by drug reps and it was even approved by the MHRA.  The people publishing this drug had an interest in"making money." However doctors have an interest of "making patients better."  So the conflict was that making money put patients at risk. There was actually substancial evidence showing that Reboxetine was not as good as placebo pills and had worse side effects. This evidence was, however, not published due to the fact that the drug wouldn't be able to be marketed.  All in all you can see how this conflict of interest was very bad for patients and caused big problems.

DoD Ch. 7

    Chapter seven begins with a discussion about telecollaboration and why it is such a necessity in todays society since peoples skill sets can be so rare.  Then Brooks talks about the Airbus collaboration that span across four countries. The nest page discusses the collaboration on the IMB System/360 Computer Family, which has been talked about several times, and how it was harder to collaborate because of primitive technology. Then Brooks writes about how to make telecollaboration work. Next he tells us how important smooth flowing, well-defined interfaces are. Then Brooks talks about the importance in face-time and low tech communication like the post letter. He then explains the levels of important technologies for collaboration, i.e. letter, telephone, document sharing and videoconferencing. Then Books mentions that videoconferencing actually didn't grow as rapidly as expected dues to low frame rates and bandwidth limitations. Brooks concludes talking about how collaboration tools are used mostly among educators and not in the design world.

DoD Ch. 6

    Brooks starts this chapter by introducing collaboration among design groups.  He mentions several designers that have created spectacular works on their own. Now designs have switched from solo to teams for the sake of being able to understand and process more information and not have mistakes. Then Brooks talks about mastering sophisticated technology. Brooks explains how being first to market gives you the opportunity to make mad profit.  Next he talks about the costs of teams, i.e. partitioning cost, learning/teaching cost, control change, and communication cost. Brooks then hits on the subject of conceptual integrity and negotiation.  Next he writes about one user interfaces that have to be designed well enough for everyone to understand them.  Then he talks about how teams brainstorm ideas. Then  he talks about how competition can be a replacement of collaboration because so many people compete for one goal and have to make several designs. Brooks then talks about how graphing and reviewing works among groups. Then he talks about the fantasy concept of design and how sometimes collaboration doesn't work. He concludes talking about how awesome two person teams can be in design processes.  And finally he related these ideas to computer scientists.

Project Design Pages

AutoView

< http://aux.coe.utsa.edu/~eesenior/fall2011/Team01/index.html >

Description: This is a project that detects free parking spaces. These guys built an iOS App and a mini model as a prototype.

Acess - Autonomously Controlled Energy Storage System

< http://aux.coe.utsa.edu/~eesenior/spring2011/Team04/ >

Description:  This design is as it sounds a energy efficiency controlling system for things that charge. This project is awesome because of its design webpage.  We are considering using a similar design.

DoD Ch. 5

Brooks first talks about the dominant design and how too many designs can be misleading and not useful.  Then he talks about Maher, Poon, and Boulanger's model that "evolves" on both sides, quote "The problem space and solution space co-evolve together...." He then disagrees and thinks that even this evolution model isn't sufficient. Brooks also mentions a Whirligig model and Raymond's Bazaar model that involve cycles and a cathedral-like design, respectively.  He goes in depth about the bazaar model saying that this model consists of many vendors and many buyers who vote, and in turn, reward vendors. This model typically produces a much more superior product since so many people develop it.  Brooks then mentions that the bazaar model works so well because the producers are the users.  Finally Brooks sums up this chapter with the Boehm Spiral model.  This model is strong and pushes forward ideas. Lastly Brooks summarizes chapters 2-5 and refers to each model with small notes about them.

DoD Ch. 4

     Brooks starts off with a story about the construction of the Comanche helicopter, and its high standards.  He then writes about how many wishes and requirements are common of a design, but usually these desires aren't possibly to reach.  Then he goes on about how requirements change while design choices are made.  He also mentions a Requirements Traceability Matrix that keeps tracks of requirements.  Next Brooks talks about how the world is controlled by "pride, greed, and sloth," which is fairly obvious. For this reason the world needs contracts, which Brooks writes about next.  The last few pages describe the ideal model for a contract and also how relations work among contracted clientele.  

DoD Ch3.

     Brooks starts by talking about a past life experience where he was instructed to design and refine a database. He had to refine the database several times to fulfill the clients needs, which were not clear from the beginning. He refers to it as goal iteration, and he considers it to be a key aspect of design. He then refers back to the tree diagram, saying that one can't always map out the whole tree diagram before beginning the design process. Each tree diagram node has many parallel possibilities. Brooks then talks about how estimations play a role in design. Next he discusses the "desiderata" for a while and how constraints constantly change due to discoveries and such. Brooks goes on to discuss how some designers actually don't work the ways previously stated.  On pg. 14 he talks about the waterfall model and its backward flowing arrows. Brooks finally addresses his opposers ideas on the design process.  And in conclusion, he states that designers are right-brained, spatial thinkers that use oversimplified models to help with extremely difficult designs.

Definition of Design

The simple definition that Brooks uses comes from the oxford dictionary:

"Design"- To form a plan or scheme of to arrange and conceive in the mind for a later execution.  

DoD Ch. 2

This chapter described how dependent design is on theory.  The process of design is explained through an example with a tree diagram.  Then the author talked about Herbert Simon and his theories of AI. He also refers to algorithm and their usefulness.  He goes on about how tree diagrams are simple and easy to follow; if the design fails you can go back one step.

D.o.D. Ch.1

     This first chapter introduced the idea of design to the reader.  It looked into the philosophical and deeper meanings of design using philosophers like Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, and many more.  Frederick Brooks Jr. did a good job of defining the concepts of design.  He refereed to the era of the original architecture developed by IBM in the 60's. Then he talked about how valuable design concepts are.  He also briefly went into the process of design and cited many designers ideas of design from 1450 to 1990.  In conclusion Brooks introduced the "Kinds of Design," which he will look further into throughout the book. Essentially this was an introduction chapter...go figure.