Impact of prototyping resource environments and timing of awareness of constraints on idea generation in product design

Abstract

Research and development laboratories in universities and firms around the world are trying to maximize innovation with a limited set of resources. However, questions remain about the influence of resource constraints on idea generation in early-stage product design. Multiple embedded case studies were conducted with engineering students and professors at two university campuses in Mexico. Students developed sketches for products that would satisfy an open-ended design problem in a constrained-resource setting, where the variables were the timing of when information about these constraints was revealed, and the regular prototyping environment of the student. The evidence suggests that the timing of awareness of constraints can have an impact on design outcomes, but that this effect varies depending on the designer's regular prototyping resource environment.

Mock-ups as a tool for assessing customer value early in the development process

“…The findings suggest that low-fidelity mock-ups can become valuable prototypes for actually examining the core functionalities and mechanisms of value creation of new products (Preece et al , 2002; Schlecht and Yang, 2014). In both cases, the early mock-ups were shown to the customers (i.e.…”

“…Hartmann et al (2006) mentioned that prototyping was the core activity in innovation, collaboration and creativity in design. Zorriassantine et al (2003) believed that the successful introduction of new products in a competitive global market was dependent on the efficient and extensive application of prototypes (Liu et al , 2013; Schlecht and Yang, 2014).…”

“…According to Brandt (2007), the use of mock-ups in a product development process evokes different aspects; even a simple mock-up clarifies many benefits and drawbacks of a product concept. Furthermore, mock-ups are important for facilitating interactions; tangible mock-ups can help all project stakeholders gain a visual and tactile feeling about the product concept and reduce uncertainties as well as misunderstandings regarding the product under development (Schlecht and Yang, 2014). Thus, prototypes serve as tools that are conceptualised as “technology and design demonstrators” and “boundary objects” that refer to “artefacts which help mediate in the boundary between actors with different perspectives, knowledge, skills, locations or status in social systems” (Moultrie, 2015, p. 2).…”

Multifaceted assessment of ideation: using networks to link ideation and design activity

“…Finally, inspiration was drawn from the work of Schlecht and Yang (2014) who also use a deep experimental observation approach in this context.…”

“…These more 'real world' studies can struggle to generalise their results across contexts due to difficulties in drawing relations between interacting process elements (Kitchenham, 1996). This is highlighted by works such as Schlecht and Yang (2014) where ideation is a key element, but the mechanisms by which it occurs are difficult to assess due to a reliance on outcome--based metrics, such as, number of ideas or quality. In both cases, the reliance on outcome measures means that suggestions for process improvements are difficult to articulate, and more importantly, hard to assess in the real world context.…”