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Overcoming design fixation: Design by analogy studies and nonintuitive findings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2016

Diana P. Moreno ,
Luciënne T. Blessing ,
Maria C. Yang ,
Alberto A. Hernández  and
Kristin L. Wood
Diana P. Moreno*
Affiliation:
Research Unit in Engineering Science, Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Luciënne T. Blessing
Affiliation:
Research Unit in Engineering Science, Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Maria C. Yang
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Alberto A. Hernández
Affiliation:
Engineering and Sciences School, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, México City, México
Kristin L. Wood
Affiliation:
Engineering and Product Development Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
*
Reprint requests to: Diana P. Moreno, Research Unit in Engineering Science, Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication, University of Luxembourg, 6 Rue Richard Coudenhouve Kalergi, Luxembourg. E-mail: diana.moreno@uni.lu
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Abstract

Design fixation is a phenomenon with important significance to many fields of design due to the potential negative impacts it may have in design outcomes, especially during the ideation stage of the design process. The present study aims to provide a framework for understanding, or at least probing, design fixation by presenting a review of existing defixation approaches, as well as metrics that have been employed to understand and account for design fixation. This study also describes the results of two design by analogy (DbA) methods, WordTree and SCAMPER, to overcome design fixation in an experiment that involved 97 knowledge-domain experts. The study outcomes are at least twofold: a common framework of metrics and approaches to overcome design fixation in a wide range of design problems and nonintuitive results for DbA approaches in design fixation and other related creativity metrics. The application of WordTree and SCAMPER shows that both methods yield increased novelty compared to a control, where the SCAMPER results are significantly higher than WordTree. It is also found that WordTree mitigates design fixation whereas SCAMPER appears to be ineffective for this purpose but effective to generate an increased quantity of novel ideas. These results demonstrate that both DbA methods provide de-fixation capabilities and enhance designers’ creativity during idea generation.

Keywords

CreativityDesign by AnalogyDesign CognitionDesign FixationDesign Methods
Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 30 , Issue 2: Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'14) , May 2016 , pp. 185 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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