The Viewpoint Paradigm: a semiotic based approach for the intelligibility of a cooperative designing process

Abstract

The concept of viewpoint is studied in the field of the modelling and the knowledge management concerned in the upstream phases of a designing process. The concept is approached by semiotics, i.e. in dealing with the requirements so that an actor gives sense to an object. This gives means to transform the intuitive concepts of viewpoint and relation between viewpoints into the Viewpoint Paradigm: the sense of an object is the integration of the viewpoints which exert on it. The elements of this paradigm are integrated in a general model, which defines two concepts formally: Viewpoint and Correlation of viewpoints. The Viewpoint Paradigm is then implemented in operational concerns which are related with the intelligibility of the designing process. Two models of viewpoint and correlation are proposed. They raise of viewpoints management such as one can identify them in the written documents of a project.