Analogies in Design Decision-Making

Abstract

Design is becoming the decisive factor in whether a product is a commercial success, like Windows XP, or a critical failure, like Microsoft Bob. To leverage this factor we need to have a greater understanding of the cognitive processes behind Interaction Design. While there are a wide array of disciplines that fall under the umbrella of design, there are several cognitive processes that are common to all strata of design. Decision Making has been identified as an important factor in the design process but remains woefully under-explored. This paper aims to understand Design Decision-making (DDM) in the light of more recent developments in the wider decisionmaking field. Two studies were conducted, consisting of an initial theoretical thematic analysis to update the outdated models of design decision-making, and a follow-up quantitative study to validate the findings of the first study. Results indicate that while the current models of DDM do well to explain elements of the decision-making process they do not account for such things as the persistence of analogies across all stages of the decision-making process.

Leading by example: Exploring the influence of design examples on children's creative ideation

“…Design fixation has been most extensively investigated under experimental conditions within the field of engineering design (Crilly and Cardoso, 2017) and although it has been acknowledged as an issue within interaction design (Hassard et al, 2009) there was been limited work exploring the impact of design fixation within PD involving children.…”

‘Fixation’ and ‘the pivot’: balancing persistence with flexibility in design and entrepreneurship

“…As these features were intentionally problematic (e.g., they contradicted the brief) this feature repetition was taken to be inadvertent and counterproductive. These fixation effects have since been investigated extensively (see recent reviews by Sio, Kotovsky, & Cagan, 2015;Vasconcelos & Crilly, 2016;Youmans & Arciszewski, 2014), and across many design disciplines, including engineering design (Linsey et al, 2010), industrial design (Cardoso & Badke-Schaub, 2011), software design (Goddard, 1976), interaction design (Hassard, Blandford, & Cox, 2009) and service design (Moreno et al, 2014). Furthermore, fixation is a concern for those developing analogical design support tools (Töre Yargin & Crilly, 2015), which provide stimuli intended to promote creative ideas (see Chakrabarti, Sarkar, Leelavathamma, & Nataraju, 2005;Cheong & Shu, 2013;Deldin & Schuknecht, 2013;Goel, Vattam, Wiltgen, & Helms, 2012).…”