Seda Yilmaz

Cognitive heuristics in design: Instructional strategies to increase creativity in idea generation

Abstract This paper explores the use of heuristics as cognitive strategies invoked during the process of design. Heuristics are reasoning processes that do not guarantee the best solution, but often lead to potential solutions by providing a simple cognitive “shortcut.” We propose that designers use specific design heuristics to explore the problem space of potential designs, leading to the generation of creative solutions. We test whether design heuristics can be taught to novices, and suggest their use will facilitate the design process at multiple levels of instruction. In the present empirical study, we evaluate a set of six instructional heuristics and validate their effectiveness with product concepts generated by novice designers. Six hundred seventy-three drawings were created by 120 first-year college students under four instructional conditions. Drawings were coded according to their content, use of heuristics, creativity, and practicality. The most creative concepts emerged from the experimental conditions where heuristics were introduced. Heuristics appeared to help the participants “jump” to a new problem space, resulting in more varied designs, and a greater frequency of designs judged as more creative. Our findings suggest that simple demonstration of design heuristics may, at times, be sufficient to stimulate divergent thinking, perhaps because these heuristics are readily grasped and contextual application is not required. Based on these findings, a conceptual model for design education emphasizing the importance of using a variety of heuristics is proposed. This model suggests that learning can be enhanced through exposure to a variety of design heuristics, and can supplement formal education and foster personal development in design learning.

A Comparison of Cognitive Heuristics Use between Engineers and Industrial Designers

The present study focuses on an exploration and identification of design heuristics used in the ideation process in both industrial designers and engineering designers. Design heuristics are cognitive strategies that help the designer generate novel design concepts. These cognitive heuristics may differ based on the design problem, the context defined, and designers’ preferences.

Can experienced designers learn from new tools? A case study of idea generation in a professional engineering team

Generating novel ideas is a challenging part of engineering design, especially when the design task has been undertaken for an extended period of time. How can experienced designers develop new ideas for familiar problems? A tool called Design Heuristics provides strategies that support engineers in considering more, and more different, concepts during idea generation. Design Heuristics have been shown to help novice engineers create a set of more diverse and creative candidate concepts. In this case study, we extended this approach to a group of professional engineers who had worked on a specific product line for many years. In a workshop format, a small group of engineers worked with the heuristics in two separate sessions and generated ideas collaboratively. Video recordings were analyzed to reveal how the heuristics were used to stimulate new designs for their product line. We found that Design Heuristics bring order in ideas and elaboration on ideas, perhaps through coordinating effort on idea evaluation, increasing capacity to improve the ideas of others, and facilitating interaction between participants. This case study shows using Design Heuristics can assist even expert engineers to increase the variety of concepts generated, resulting in a larger set of ideas to consider.

Design Heuristics in Innovative Products

Current design theory lacks a systematic method to identify what designers know that helps them to create innovative products. In the early stages of idea generation, designers may find novel ideas come readily to mind, or may become fixated on their own or existing products. This may limit the ability to consider more and more varied candidate concepts that may potentially lead to innovation. To aid in idea generation, we sought to identify “design heuristics,” or “rules of thumb,” evident in award-winning designs. In this paper, we demonstrate a content analysis method for discovering heuristics in the designs of innovative products. Our method depends on comparison to a baseline of existing products so that the innovative change can be readily identified. Through an analysis of key features and functional elements in the designs of over 400 award-winning products, 40 heuristic principles were extracted. These design heuristics are outlined according to their perceived role in changing an existing product concept into a novel design, and examples of other products using the heuristics are provided. To demonstrate the ease of use of these design heuristics, we examined outcomes from a classroom study and found that concepts created using design heuristics were rated as more creative and varied. The analysis of changes from existing to innovative products can provide evidence of useful heuristic principles to apply in creating new designs. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4032219]

Comparing Ideation Techniques for Beginning Designers

Concept generation techniques can help to support designers in generating multiple ideas during design tasks. However, differences in the ways these techniques guide idea generation are not well understood. This study investigated the qualities of concepts generated by beginning engineering designers using one of three different idea generation techniques. Working individually on an open-ended engineering design problem, 102 first year engineering students learned and applied one of three different ideation techniques— design heuristics, morphological analysis, or individual brainstorming (using brainstorming rules to generate ideas working alone)—to a given design problem. Using the consensual assessment technique, all concepts were rated for creativity, elaboration, and practicality, and all participants’ concept sets were rated for quantity and diversity. The simplest technique, individual brainstorming, led to the most concepts within the short (25 minute) ideation session. All three techniques produced creative concepts averaging near the scale midpoint. The elaboration of the concepts was significantly higher with design heuristics and morphological analysis techniques, and the practicality was significantly higher using design heuristics. Controlling for number of concepts generated, there were no significant differences in diversity of solution sets across groups. These results demonstrate that the use of design heuristics does not limit the creativity of ideation outcomes, and helps students to develop more elaborate and practical ideas. Design heuristics show advantages in the initial idea generation phase for beginning engineering students. These findings point to specific strengths in different ideation techniques, and the value of exposing beginning designers to multiple techniques for idea generation. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4034087]

Ideation Variety in Mechanical Design: Examining the Effects of Cognitive Style and Design Heuristics

This paper examines ideation variety as a measure of the extent to which a design solution space has been explored. We investigated one cognitive factor (cognitive style) and one cognitive intervention (Design Heuristics cards) and their relationships with students’ ideation variety, both actual and perceived. Cognitive style was measured using the Kirton Adaption-Innovation inventory (KAI), while variety scores were computed using the metrics of Nelson et al. [18] and Shah et al. [20]; an adapted form of these metrics was also explored. A group of 132 sophomore mechanical engineering students generated ideas for two design problems (one with and one without Design Heuristics cards). They sketched and described their conceptual solutions in words and assessed the variety of their solutions after ideation. Linear statistical techniques were applied to explore the relationships among the variety scores, students’ self-assessments of variety, cognitive style, quantity of ideas, and the presence of the Design Heuristics intervention. Our results show statistically significant correlations between students’ perceived variety and their variety performance, and between cognitive style and both variety performance and student perceptions.Copyright

Creativity 'misrules': First year engineering students' production and perception of creativity in design ideas

We report four cases from a larger study, focusing on participants’ self-identified “most creative” concept in relation to their other concepts. As part of an ideation session, first-year engineering students were asked to create concepts for one of two engineering design problems in an 85-minute period, and were exposed to one of two different forms of fixation. Participants worked as individuals, first using traditional brainstorming techniques and generating as many ideas as possible. Design Heuristics cards were then introduced, and students were asked to generate as many additional concepts as possible. After the activity, participants ranked all of the concepts they generated from most to least creative. Representative cases include a detailed analysis of the concept that each participant rated as “most creative,” idea generation method used, and relative location and relationship of the concept to other concepts generated by that participant. Across four cases, we identified a number of characteristic “misrules” or misconceptions, revealing that first-year students judge creativity in their concepts in ways that could inhibit their ability to produce truly novel concepts. We present Design Heuristics as a tool to encourage the exploration of creative concept pathways, empowering students to create more novel concepts by rejecting misrules about creativity.Copyright

Influences of feedback interventions on student concept generation and development practices

Design teaching in many disciplines relies on feedback as a primary way for students and instructors to communicate. Our work focused on identifying feedback types in three different design disciplines (dance choreography, industrial design, and mechanical engineering) and analyzing how those feedback types encouraged students to take convergent or divergent paths with their design ideas. We then compared feedback types and encouragement of convergence or divergence across the three disciplines. Our findings showed many common types of feedback used across the three disciplines, regardless of variance in context and expectations. However, the findings also revealed a high frequency of feedback suggesting convergence or not pushing in either direction. While design processes aim to identify the most promising solution through a series of convergence steps, divergence is equally critical throughout the entire process, and this work suggests a consideration of when and how to integrate feedback supporting divergence throughout design processes.

Design heuristics: Cognitive strategies for creativity in idea generation

This paper explores the use of heuristics as cognitive strategies invoked during the process of design. We propose new heuristics for design that provide ways to explore the problem space of potential designs, and often lead to the generation of creative solutions. We test whether Design Heuristics can be taught to novices, and whether doing so will improve the creativity of their resulting designs.