Automated support of design teams, consisting of both human and
automated systems, requires an understanding of the role of trust in
distributed design processes. By explicating trust, an individual
designer's decisions become better understood and may be better
supported. Each individual designer has his or her private goals in a
cooperative design setting, in which requirement conflicts and resource
competitions abound. However, there are group goals that also need to be
reached. This paper presents an overview of research related to trust in
the context of agents and design, a computational knowledge-level model of
trust based on the seven beliefs distinguished by Castelfranchi and
Falcone, and an example of the use of the trust model in a specific design
process, namely, Website design from the perspective of a single designer.
The results are discussed in the context of distributed design in open
systems.