Design reuse: An overview

Abstract

This paper reviews the current research that has been carried out under the ‘design reuse’ umbrella. It classifies and discusses the work carried out in design reuse under seven categories, namely: focused innovation, cognitive studies on design reuse, computational perspective of design reuse, use of standard components, design reuse tools and methods, design reuse systems and issues in design reuse. In the light of this discussion it proposes future areas of work to enable design reuse to become an accepted tool for systematic design.