There seems to be confusion in the literature to date regarding the concepts of intent, purpose, function, behavior, and structure in design. This paper is meant to provide a focus for discussion on the disambiguation of such concepts. The paper argues for the integration of concepts relating to both the human sociocultural environment and the physical environment in arriving at definitions meaningful to designers from different disciplines. Issues such as decomposition and specialization are addressed, and finally, a means of representation with the expressive power and flexibility required is presented.
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