Problem of structuredness of design tasks of technical object

Design as such is a cognitive activity, in the process of which a designer or a team goes through a difficult path from vague and intuitive ideas about the designed object to the results of its detailed study. At the same time, the tasks assigned to researchers can vary greatly in the degree of structuredness, that is, in other words, in the amount of interrelated data describing this task. In the event of a deficit of information about the problem, the researcher will subjectively choose the approaches and methods for its solution. However, it is highly likely that he will act in accordance with the past successful approach, regardless of the applicability of this approach to the new task. The inadequacy of the chosen approach to the task at hand will contribute to ineffective use of the time, intellectual and material resources of the research team. To reduce subjectivity in the analysis of the design tasks in the field of mechanical systems, a technique is proposed for dividing them into levels of complexity according to the characteristic features of structuredness.