Empirical Studies of Design Ideation: Alignment of Design Experiments With Lab Experiments

Abstract

Although various Idea Generation (IG) methods exist for conceptual design, the ideation process is still hardly understood. There is a need for a Design Ideation Model that explains the variables and processes occurring during IG. Cognitive Science provides models and theories, but these are usually derived from simple tasks or problems. On the other hand, Design Research simulates real world design better, but experimentation at the design level is time consuming and is difficult to isolate due to interactions of the variables involved. This paper introduces an approach for the alignment of experiments at the design level with lab experiments in cognitive psychology. Two key concepts that make this alignment possible are: ideation components (mechanisms believed to promote IG) recognized in Design Research and Cognitive Science, and uniform measures. The long-term objective of this research is the creation of a Design Ideation Model; this will require the testing and modeling of several of these ideation components. This paper presents results from Design and Lab Experiments for a selected component: incubation. Results are discussed and their significance explained in the context of the Design Ideation Model. This study found that, based on the correlation at both the Lab and Design Experiments, incubation had a positive impact on Design Ideation. Further, the alignment approach followed proved to be appropriate for the individual modeling of ideation components.

Automating design with intelligent human–machine integration

“…The greatest merit of epistemology for promoting the development of automating design is its descriptive power of the cognitive mechanism [158] of humans during design ideation, which is supposed to be mimicked by machine intelligence for the ideal situation where the design is fully automated. As clarified by Goel et al [66], the future trend of CAD systems should be based on the grounding in design cognition.…”

Using Metrics of Curation to Evaluate Information-Based Ideation

“…We derive elemental ideation metrics of curation from those previously developed in engineering design by Shah et al [2002Shah et al [ , 2003, who treated responses to a design ideation task only as atomized alternatives, not as an assembled whole. Like Shah et al, we compute distinct elemental ideation metrics for Fluency, Flexibility, and Novelty.…”

“…Human performance on divergent thinking tasks is more difficult to assess than that on convergent thinking [Finke et al 1992]. Building on the factors of creativity of Guilford [1950], engineering design researchers have measured ideation in solutions to design problems in terms of their fluency (quantity), flexibility (variety), novelty, and quality [Shah et al 2002[Shah et al , 2003Song and Agogino 2004;Dym et al 2005;Linsey et al 2005]:…”

combinFormation

“…We also use time as a dimension of presentation, in order to be able to present more results. The resulting ongoing set of composition space states are intended to serve as provocative stimuli [Shah et al 2003] for creative ideation. Search result documents are downloaded, and processed.…”

“…Divergent thinking tasks are based on open-ended questions that involve collecting and connecting multiple possible answers [Shah et al 2003]. These are fundamentally different cognitive processes from convergent thinking, and so require different evaluation methods.…”