Design Evaluator is a pen-based critiquing system that interprets the elements and spatial relationships in a design diagram and compares it with design guidelines and constraints to provide critical feedback.

Our working prototype demonstrates how knowledgebased critiquing can be embedded into a pen-based design environment. Sketching supports easy design revision and quick idea exploration; critiquing helps designers see problems and opportunities in their designs. The Design Evaluator project explored how to record a sketch drawing and capture relevant elements and spatial relationships, how to criticize designs using rule-sets, and how to deliver
critiques in various visual formats. We have illustrated the idea of pen-based critiquing in two design domains. In the first, architectural floor plans, visual critiques like annotated drawings and 3D texturemapped models are provided. In the second, Web page layout, critiques are linked to good and bad exemplars.

Design Evaluator