Enhancing general-purpose tools with multi-state previewing capabilities

General-purpose design tools can be applied to a wide variety of design problems, but the large number of unique states they are able to produce makes it difficult to find results most relevant to a specific design problem. Current interfaces exacerbate this problem by offering only a single preview of one potential future state. We introduce multi-state previewing tools to facilitate the process of generating, displaying, navigating, and evaluating multiple, potential future states simultaneously. Multi-state previewing tools specifically encode and automate higher-level design practices, such as exploring multiple alternatives, better aligning computer-based tools with design. In this paper, we synthesize a framework for this class of tools by combining and generalizing existing instantiations, then show how this framework can be used to guide the design, implementation, and further research of these tools.