An approach for reflectively discovering and synthesizing design knowledge for situated artefacts: The case of the early warning score chart

This paper presents an approach for reflectively evaluating systems from a design science perspective. Design science research typically follows a design-build-evaluate methodology, where the evaluation is dependent on the utility requirements defined in the design phase. This methodology is appropriate when designing new systems, but is suboptimal when developing iterative design improvements for existing situated artifacts or legacy systems. For iterative design, there is a necessity to understand the problem system the previous iteration was designed for and what changes to the problem system the artifact was designed to affect. Often the design process for these solutions will not have been adequately documented, and as such a process of discovery must be undertaken to document each stage of the design process. Once documented, an evaluate-build-evaluate design approach can be taken. The purpose of this paper is to outline an approach for acquiring and synthesizing design knowledge, which allows for rigorous evaluation of a situated artifact.