Diagrams and design stories
Sidney C. Bailin · Machine Graphics & Vision International Journal archive · 2003
We present a theory of design stories that structurally distinguishes a from other forms of documentation. We examine how design diagrams might convey such stories, and how an implicit story can be made more explicit through diagrammatic cues and annotations. We develop these ideas in the context of a real-life design process. Members of the design team themselves found it a challenge to recall the rationale for various decisions. We present a series of diagrams that discloses the underlying progression of ideas, and we show how this story may be too-opaquely packaged in the final diagram that the team produced.