Using Monochromatic Design Views to Avoid a Premature Fixation on Design Solutions

Abstract

This study investigates whether the availability of a monochromatic design view can prevent an early fixation on details during the preliminary stages of a design task. Design students are trained to tentatively sketch the overall form of a design concept before attending to its details. Literature suggests that using multiple colors for sketching a concept causes a gestalt-like grouping phenomenon and influences designers to adopt a contrasting strategy of adding details before sketching the overall form. An empirical study was conducted to assess the validity of these findings. In the study, 20 participants, randomly assigned to two groups, were allowed to use multiple colors to sketch a design concept within a digital sketching environment. However, only the single-color group had the ability to view a sketch, as it would appear in monochrome. Both groups parsed the design concepts into their basic components and used colors as a means of distinguishing one component from another. However, the single-color group added significantly more details than the first or the multicolor group after sketching the overall form. Verbal reports suggest that the single-color group was able to avoid an early fixation on details because the single-color view eliminated the discontinuities induced by the variation in color and allowed the participants to attend to the overall form instead of the individual components. The current findings highlight the importance of providing a monochrome design view within a sketching environment to avoid an early fixation on a specific design solution.