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© 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Chapter 19
Going Meta
Design Space and Evaluation
Space in Software Design
Jeffrey V. Nickerson and Lixiu Yu
Stevens Institute of Technology
19.1 INTRODUCTION
Design is an exploratory activity, and there are many ways to get lost or stuck. ere is
no preexisting map—the map is built through the design process. Just as in any form of
exploring, it is dicult to take stock, to go meta and consider the situation from a dierent
level of abstraction—that is, to engage in metacognition (Metcalfe and Shimamura 1994).
But we will argue that this is an essential part of any design process.
We will use the opportunity pro ...