  This paper presents an empirical study of the software reuse activity by
expert designers in the context of object-oriented design. Our study focuses on
the three following aspects of reuse : (1) the interaction between some design
processes, e.g. constructing a problem representation, searching for and
evaluating solutions, and reuse processes, i.e. retrieving and using previous
solutions, (2) the mental processes involved in reuse, e.g. example-based
retrieval or bottom-up versus top-down expanding of the solution, and (3) the
mental representations constructed throughout the reuse activity, e.g. dynamic
versus static representations. Some implications of these results for the
specification of software reuse support environments are discussed.
