Alleviating design fixation with Alternative Uses Task: The role of an integrated and design-independent intervention in promoting creative incubation

Abstract

Fixation hampers creativity and impedes progress in product styling design. Alternative Uses Task (AUT) is a promising intervention to mitigate design fixation as it involves both associative and suppressive cognitive processes and is distant from product styling design in both form and content. This article describes a designer-centred experiment investigating whether and how AUT can mitigate design fixation by comparing the impact of AUT and a descriptive task (DT) on the subsequent design phases. The analysis of design schemes and questionnaire feedback shows that AUT improved design schemes and reduced design fixation better than the DT. Further analysis of eye movement data revealed that AUT facilitated attention control and enhanced arousal. AUT is a cognitively beneficial intervention task applicable to design contexts that can yield benefits after short-term exposure.