Design Fixation Research Articles

Conceptualising Design Fixation and Design Limitation and Quantifying Their Impacts on Resource Use and Carbon Emissions

Design for sustainability needs to apply a societal perspective. The purpose of this paper is to combine the concept of design fixation with higher levels of analysis. Design fixation is used to describe a blind adherence to known concepts during the design process. It is used mostly at the micro level of design with the focus on the activities of an individual designer or a group of designers. In this paper, design fixation gets conceptually lifted to the levels of the organisation and the institution. We ask how the understanding of design fixation helps to achieve higher resource efficiency. Examples of organisational and institutional design fixations are presented. A System Dynamics model is used to simulate the impacts of design fixation on resource use of a sociotechnical laundry systems. Applying this lens suggests that in order to solve societal design fixations, systemic parameters like infrastructure, business models, or policies need to be considered design parameters. The simulation results show that high-level design fixations can have significant impact on resource use.

How can I use it? The role of functional fixedness in the survival-processing paradigm

After imagining being stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land without any basic survival material and rating objects with respect to their relevance in this situation, participants show superior memory performance for these objects compared to a control scenario. A possible mechanism responsible for this memory advantage is the richness and distinctiveness with which information is encoded in the survival-scenario condition. When confronted with the unusual task of thinking about how an object can be used in a life-threatening context, participants will most likely consider both common and uncommon (i.e., novel) functions of this object. These ideas about potential functions may later serve as powerful retrieval cues that boost memory performance. We argue that objects differ in their potential to be used as novel, creative survival tools. Some objects may be low in functional fixedness, meaning that it is possible to use them in many different ways. Other objects, in contrast, may be high in functional fixedness, meaning that the possibilities to use them in non-standard ways is limited. We tested experimentally whether functional fixedness of objects moderates the strength of the survival-processing advantage compared to a moving control scenario. As predicted, we observed an interaction of the functional fixedness level with scenario type: The survival-processing memory advantage was more pronounced for objects low in functional fixedness compared to those high in functional fixedness. These results are in line with the richness-of-encoding explanation of the survival-processing advantage.

MITIGATING DESIGN FIXATION WITH EVOLVING EXTENDED REALITY TECHNOLOGY: AN EMERGING OPPORTUNITY

AbstractDesign fixation refers to the designers’ inability to avoid becoming stuck with preexisting ideas in order to generate new ones. With the recent fast advancements and developments, XR has emerged as a powerful promising technology that can shed new light on this issue. Consequently, this paper aims at: (1) investigating the underlying mechanisms of design fixation as reported in literature; (2) exploring the state-of-art in the use of XR technology in design; and (3) identifying ways to mitigate design fixation by employing XR technology.

NEW DESIGN HEURISTICS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

AbstractIn the digital era, products’ forms do not necessarily follow their function. Design fixation may happen when a designer attempts to generate diverse concepts. New design heuristics for digital design were extracted to support designers in the early conceptual design stage. Ten design heuristics were extracted from 998 RedDot award-winning concept designs (2013-2017) through a five-step process. It was preliminarily tested by four practitioners and proved to have positively influenced their conceptual design.

Design Fixation From Initial Examples: Provided Versus Self-Generated Ideas

AbstractJansson and Smith (1991, “Design Fixation,” Des. Stud., 12(1), pp. 3–11) demonstrated that design fixation occurs when an example solution is provided along with a design problem. After seeing an example concept—even with its flaws pointed out—new designs often share its features. In Jansson and Smith’s studies, a control group saw no example and showed less fixation to the example provided only in the other group. However, another source of fixation from an initial example may arise in the control group from the designer’s own first-generated concept. We conducted a large-scale experiment with beginning engineers to investigate whether design fixation occurs even without seeing a provided example. Half of the participants saw an example solution and half were given no example; instead, they generated their own initial design. Next, all students were individually brainstormed ideas for 30 min. We analyzed both groups’ concepts for fixation on the first solution they saw—either the example provided or their own initial concept. The results showed that the students provided with an example concept experienced less fixation on the initial example than those in the control group, whose concepts were evaluated for similarity to their own initial concept. To consider whether fixation on initial examples (provided or self-generated) might be mitigated, we asked these students to complete a second (30 min) idea generation phase using Design Heuristics for idea inspiration. The results showed that both groups experienced less fixation during the second-generation phase. These findings suggest that fixation on first solutions occurs in individual idea generation arising from both provided examples and self-generated concepts. However, more divergent idea generation can be facilitated through the use of design tools, such as Design Heuristics, to mitigate the consequences of design fixation.

Using a Fork as a Hairbrush: Investigating Dual Routes to Release from Functional Fixedness

AbstractFunctional fixedness involves difficulty with conceptualizing creative object uses. When it obstructs problem‐solving, individuals must reframe their approach. We examined how different training techniques—chunk decomposition (i.e., considering an object’s basic parts and physical properties) and constraint relaxation (i.e., considering an object’s different functions)—might rely upon different routes to creative reframing. Additionally, we investigated how different forms of cognitive load interact with these dual routes. Participants learned one of three techniques. Chunk decomposition participants created object breakdown diagrams; constraint relaxation participants created object functions lists; and free association (control) participants wrote a word that they associated with each of several concrete nouns. After training, participants attempted to solve five functional fixedness problems. E1 investigated how increasing germane cognitive load via either direct or indirect prompting affected training transfer. Experiment 2 investigated how reducing extraneous cognitive load by providing no transfer instructions and using an eye‐closure strategy. Across both experiments, results supported differences in accuracy and response latency by training. However, chunk decomposition and constraint relaxation did not follow the same pattern, suggesting different mechanisms of the effect. We discuss possible applications to increase innovation in real‐world domains such as education, business, and engineering.

Read the full patent or just the claims? Mitigating design fixation and design distraction when reviewing patent documents

An approach to avoid patent infringement is to review patent documents prior to ideation. However, doing so can lead to design fixation and design distraction. Hence, this paper examines whether reviewing just the patent claim instead of the full patent document can mitigate design fixation and design distraction. 329 undergraduate engineering students were involved in this study. It was found that reviewing just the patent claim can reduce fixation on the design feature reviewed but not on the function of the design feature. In addition, reviewing just the patent claim did not reduce design distraction. The findings of this work can be used to shape the way patent documents are reviewed.

The Beauty or the Beast? Unlocking Recombinant Determinants of Performance for Artistic and Functional Product Designs

Product innovation entails both technological and design innovation, yet our knowledge of determinants of innovation outcomes is limited to technological innovations. This is a significant limitation because design innovation represents an increasingly large share of total innovation activity by organizations and innovators. In this paper, we focus on two dimensions of design recombination: The number of parent designs, i.e., the number of designs that used in the creation of the focal design, and the transfer distance, i.e., the average categorical distance of parent designs to the focal design. We argue that using multiple parent designs is beneficial for functional designs and increases the likelihood that functional design is a “hit”. This outcome happens because using multiple parent designs enables designers to focus on improving a specific component or to focus on integrated functionality while using the best available components for the rest. For the artistic designs, however, transfer distance increases the likelihood that the design is a “hit”. When a designer uses design(s) from the same or similar categories, it may lead to a “design fixation” that reduces the novelty in the focal design, where novelty is a critical determinant of the success of artistic designs. Our findings, based on an online 3D printing community called Thingiverse, support our arguments. Our study has important implications for research on design innovation, recombinant innovation, and managing innovation communities.

A computational approach for using social networking platforms to support creative idea generation

Abstract Good design relies upon the generation of good ideas, but producing ideas, especially creative ones, is increasingly challenging. This may be due to limited relevant information, lack of creative skills, design fixation, or as a result of too many previously existing ideas. Conventional creativity tools, such as brainstorming and TRIZ, as well as advanced methods, such as design-by-analogy, are often employed by designers for idea generation to alleviate some of these challenges. In recent years, computational creativity tools have emerged to support creative idea generation. However, most of these computational tools are data-driven, and thereby employ various databases, for example, existing databases such as the ConceptNet containing past common-sense knowledge, and customized ones containing limited information. The limitations of these databases have constrained the capability of the computational creativity tools. Social media platforms, such as Twitter and Wikipedia, which allow users to create web-based content, have been reported to have billions of users. It can be considered a huge ‘unorganized’ database of information created by a crowd. However, to date little work has been done on the utilization of such crowd-generated knowledge from social media to support actual design activities, especially during the early stages of the design process. In this paper, the authors propose a computational approach to retrieve, process, and reuse the textual knowledge from social networks to prompt designers’ creative mind in producing ideas for new product design and development. They also propose a novel approach to construct crowd knowledge databases, which can be employed by computational tools, as well as used individually, for supporting creative idea generation. A case study involving the use of an existing social media analysis tool to construct a crowd database for helping designers produce ideas has been conducted to provide insights on implementing the proposed approach for creative idea generation.

Methodological diversity and theoretical integration: Research in design fixation as an example of fixation in research design?

This work was partly supported by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K008196/1).

Enhancement of Creativity: Semantic Priming Through Naming Objects Loosens Functional Fixedness within Idea Generation

Functional fixedness is related to excessive focusing on a specific functional property of an object. We assumed that the naming of other objects which possess the same functional property to a lesser extent than a given object can reduce the excessive focusing on this functional property for this object. It can help to loosen functional fixedness and improve individual creative performance. We tested the effectiveness of this method with 302 participants aged between 17 and 22 (256 female and 46 male). The study consisted of two experiments with 110 and 192 participants, respectively. Prior to performing a creative activity (story writing in Experiment 1 and thinking up unusual uses of a given object in Experiment 2), participants from different groups were asked to name objects which possess the main functional property of the given object to the same extent, to a lesser extent, and to a greater extent, respectively. In both phases of the study, we found a significant effect on the extent of the target property possession on originality. Results showed that participants named objects with the lesser manifestation of a target property outperformed their counterparts from other groups.

A Methodical Approach to Support Conceptual Design for Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing

AbstractAdditive manufacturing (AM) opens new possibilities for innovative product designs. However, due to a lack of knowledge and restrained creativity because of design fixations, design engineers do not take advantage of AM's design freedom. Especially multi-material AM provides new opportunities for functional integration that hardly considered in ideation. To overcome barriers in the development of solution ideas and utilizing such new design potentials, new design methods and tools are needed. Therefore, in this contribution, a methodological approach for a function-oriented provision of solution principles specific to material extrusion is presented. A tool is developed to facilitate effective guidance in developing solution ideas and to foster a realistic concretization by providing a combination of opportunistic and restrictive AM knowledge. Besides general levers of AM, process-specific design opportunities support the design engineers in exploiting AM's potentials, especially those who are not familiar with Design for AM. Finally, the applicability of the methodological approach is evaluated in an academic study by means of redesigning a hand prosthesis with a grab function.

Assessing the Impact of Abstract Representations and Reframing of Design Brief Information on Creative Ideation

AbstractThe overarching goal of this work is to support creative ideation in engineering design with the aim of overcoming design fixation. We study the impact of abstract representations and ways to frame the problem in design briefs on the creativity of concept sketches. Framing/Reframing involves shifting perspectives on the design purpose and to reveal insights and opportunities. Two Framing/Reframing techniques are tested: the Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram to identify root causes and a blend of Parnes’ Restatement/SCAMPER method to encourage divergence in problem perception. Abstract representations of requirements were used as stimuli to foster transfer and associative thinking. Using a full-factorial experimental design with brief variations, C-Sketch ideas developed by first-year engineering/architecture students were evaluated for their creativity. Our results showed a positive interaction effect for novelty and usefulness when the Fishbone Reframing method was used with abstract representation, but there was no difference in creativity scores when comparing the two Framing/Reframing methods between each other.

Uncovering early indicators of fixation during the concept development stage of children\u2019s design processes

In this paper, we explore the early indicators of design fixation occurring during the concept development stage of children’s design processes. This type of fixation, which we named: concept fixation, causes a blind adherence to the current (possibly unfavourable) state of a design idea. Its occurrence hampers the creative thinking processes present in a design process, which in turn stagnates the development of initial design ideas into final designs. Until now, research on design fixation has mainly focussed on creative idea generation in the early phases of the design process through analysing (intermediate) design ideas and completed artefacts. However, children’s fixation behaviours might be identified at an earlier moment through the conversations that take place in the classroom about their design ideas. To this end, we present a case study in which we explored early indicators of concept fixation of a group of 24 primary school children (ages 9–11) carrying out a co-design project. Fixation was observed through the manner in which the design teams responded to questions and comments from their peers and the client. Four categories of response behaviours indicating concept fixation emerged from the verbal data, namely: ‘band-aids’, ‘already-in-there’, ‘question-not-relevant’ and ‘it’s-not-possible’. We expect that the indicators will be helpful in identifying concept fixation during the design process, especially in an educational context. The process of identification of fixation, and reflecting on it, creates awareness. This is considered as an important step by professional designers towards guarding oneself from fixation episodes in future projects, and thus being more creative.

Prompting More Relevant and Reliable Audit Evidence Ideation With a Counterfactual Mindset

Regulator concerns about the amount or type of audit evidence obtained by auditors are among some of the most pervasive and long-standing criticism of the profession. While prior literature has investigated many potential causes of suboptimal audit evidence selection, I examine whether the subconscious mechanism of design fixation is also contributing to auditors’ tendency to rely on similar audit evidence year-over-year. Design fixation is a phenomenon in which knowledge of how a problem was solved in the past blocks new ideas from coming to mind (Jansson and Smith 1991). Relying on associative memory theory (Nijstad and Stroebe 2006), I predict and find that priming a counterfactual mindset improves the quantity, relevance, and reliability of audit evidence ideation when auditors plan familiar audit areas, but not for unfamiliar audit areas. I also find the benefits of a counterfactual mindset on ideation are robust to the source of the design fixation (i.e., own knowledge vs. an inherited example). Supplemental analyses suggest that the improved list of audit evidence resulting from a counterfactual mindset subsequently allowed auditors to generate more efficient audit programs for familiar audit areas.

Thinking Outside of Functional Fixedness with the Aide of Mental Fatigue

This research explored the relationship between mental fatigue and creativity by testing the creative potential of 25 Keene State College students, half of which were subjected to mental fatigue. Little research has been done to look at these 2 variables together, but considerable research has been done on them individually. Using an independent-measures study, it was demonstrated that, although many view mental fatigue as inhibitory and bad for productivity, this inhibitory nature can actually be beneficial to one’s creativity by inhibiting the rigidity of one’s role assignment for objects. Participants (23 female) were primarily recruited from underclass-level psychology courses. Two forms of a working memory task—one difficult (43% correct) to induce mental fatigue, and the other easy (985 correct) as a control condition—and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) to measure creativity, revealed that mental fatigue resulted in significantly higher scores across all measurements and forms of creativity within the TTCT.

Design Fixation — The Bane of Innovative Engineering

Design Fixation — The Bane of Innovative Engineering

Pre-service teachers’ algebraic reasoning and thinking barriers in solving algebraic problem

Algebraic reasoning is a process in which student generalize mathematical ideas from a set of particular instances, establish those generalizations through the discourse of argumentation, and express them in increasingly formal and age-appropriate ways. This is descriptive qualitative research. The primary interest was to explore pre-service teacher’ thinking that might be foundational to algebraic reasoning and to describe their thinking barriers in solving an algebraic problem. There are twelve pre-service teachers who have participated in this study. The task was designed and given to all participants. Documents were the subjects’ test results and unstructured interview transcripts. The results showed that the subjects had difficulties in generalizing and connecting mathematical patterns. Based on the subject’s difficulties, we concluded that the subjects have barriers that include confirmation bias, mental set, functional fixedness, and unnecessary constraints. The intensity of each barrier will be discussed further in this article.

An alternative solution for patient with high risk of coronary obstruction underwent TAVI procedure using a novel second-generation device \u2013 a case series

BackgroundObstruction of the left or right coronary artery is a rare but lethal complication during transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). The new J-Valve™ prosthesis is a new second generation TAVI device which has several features to avoid the coronary obstruction such as low profile design and clip fixation of the native leaflets. The aim of this study is to report our initial experience of using this valve in treating patient with high risk factors for coronary obstruction during TAVI procedure.Case presentationThree high surgical risk patients (All females with 77, 76, and 75 years old) with symptomatic aortic stenosis were enrolled. All patients have the common feature of low coronary ostium height (< 10 mm) with narrowed aortic sinus (< 30 mm) on CT angiogram and marked leaflet calcification. Three 25 mm J-Valve prostheses were successfully implanted through trans-apical approach. No coronary obstruction was noted for these patients. Effective aortic open area was significantly increased after valve implantation (Preoperative 0.7, 0.7 and 0.65 cm2 – Postoperative 1.8, 1.9 and 2.0 cm2). Only one patient was noted to have trivial degree paravalvular leakage.ConclusionThe new J-Valve prosthesis is a new second generation TAVI device. This system may provide another safety treatment option for patient with high risk factor for coronary obstruction underwent TAVI procedure.

Pola Penggunaan Internet Mahasiswa Desain sebagai Sumber Inspirasi pada Tahap Awal Desain (Early Phase Design)

This study aims to determine the pattern of internet use as a source of inspiration for design students in the early stages of the design process. In the design process, words and images are factors that greatly influence creativity, and the internet makes it easy for students to access these data. The research conducted through distributing questionnaires to undergraduate product design students to determine their internet usage tendency in finding design inspiration. By knowing the pattern of internet usage and what sites they usually visit, we can find out the input quality that students get independently when looking for inspiration. This is an important aspect to avoid design fixation. The result shows that in the process of searching for inspiration through the internet, students tend to use sites that are general and have more visual data (such as pinterest) in the first place, then followed by searching more about linguistic data (design explanations, features, functions, etc.) (such as behance), and then the usage tend to be more diverse depending on each students style and preference. The use of search keywords is still dominated by references that are near and even exactly the same as the design categories they are developing (exp. searching car designs reference when designing cars). This enhances the possibility of design fixation. To enhance the quality of input obtained by students will be better and reduce the possibility of design fixation, higher education institution could make the finding inspiration process in a more structured system such as lectures or other formal method. Key words: product design, early phase design, internet, creativity, design education