ABSTRACT

Intermediate, transient representations are the representations that clearly occupy the greatest part of the design activity during a project. The representations produced and used in early and later intermediate design phases are generally not of the same type as the final representation, which specifies the implementation of the artifact. They allow designers to focus on different aspects of their design (Newman & Landay, 2000), which may or may not be maintained until the final design stages, Indeed, intermediate representations are observed to contain information not found in the final representation. Moreover, as shown by J. C. Tang (1991) in his research on collaborative work in conceptual design team sessions, "the process of creating and using drawings" also conveys important information not contained in the resulting drawings (p. 156; the emphasis is ours).