Evaluation of physical models as creative stimuli in conceptual design of products

Abstract

In product development, designers employ techniques to overcome creativity barriers and most stimuli proposed take the form of texts and illustrations. To facilitate the application of external stimuli and enhance their benefits, this paper proposes the use of physical models. The hypothesis is that these can enhance the designer's creativity more efficiently than other forms of stimuli. The influence of physical models on ideation sessions was evaluated and the outcomes were compared with those obtained applying informative cards. The results reported herein show that physical models can improve the capacity of designers to generate more creative solutions, because they promote a better understanding of analogy sources and encourage communication between the members of the design team. • Physical models as creative stimuli can enhance the generation of innovative solutions. • The functionality, features and structure of physical models facilitate the understanding and transfer of information from an analogy source. • Designers ideate more functions in the solutions when working with physical models. • Physical models facilitate the use of analogy sources from distant domains in ideation sessions. • Physical models improve the design by analogy process.