from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
design recovery
<process> A subtask of {reverse engineering} in which domain
knowledge, external information, and deduction of fuzzy
reasoning are added to the observations of the subject system
to identify meaningful higher level abstractions beyond those
obtained directly by examining the system itself.
In other words, design recovery aims to work out what a system
or component was designed to do rather than just examining its
subcomponents and their interrelationships.
(1996-12-08)