A DESIGNERS SPREADSHEET

We have observed that many designers use spreadsheet programs for prel iminary parametric design calculations. The primary reason for this ap pears to be the flexibility and ease of use of spreadsheets as compare d to more advanced analysis tools. However, current commercially avail able spreadsheets were originally designed for finance and accounting and do not naturally support the analytical techniques used in design and engineering. In this paper, we propose a fundamentally different k ind of spreadsheet for use in preliminary parametric design. We descri be the features of this spreadsheet that make it especially suitable f or preliminary parametric design, discuss the theoretical basis for im plementing it and present the results of preliminary user tests.