PANDA, the Pumper Apparatus Novice Design Assistant, is a case-based design system developed to assist firefighters who wish to design their pumper engines. In contrast to other such systems, PANDA addresses the unique needs of a novice, non-specialist who performs design in a highly specialized domain, where the design is decomposable into elements which each fulfill their own identifiable function. In PANDA we study how to create an interactive case-based design assistant that can understand the needs and desires of a non-specialist designer and can translate them into formal specifications; that can provide assistance by using case-based design methodologies; that can deal with non-functional design criteria such as aesthetics and traditional practices; and that can guide the novice designer by discussing alternatives, tradeoffs, and adaptations. Our prototypical system verifies our methodological approach to supporting novice design activities.
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Roderman et al. (1993) studied this question.