Article
Evidence-based design heuristics for idea generation
Design Studies
(2016)
Abstract
How do product designers create multiple concepts to consider? To address this
question, we combine evidence from four empirical studies of design process and
outcomes, including award-winning products, multiple concepts for a project by
an experienced industrial designer, and concept sets from 48 industrial and
engineering designers for a single design problem. This compilation of over 3450
design process outcomes is analyzed to extract concept variations evident across
design problems and solutions. The resulting set of patterns, in the form of 77
Design Heuristics, catalog how designers appear to introduce intentional
variation into conceptual product designs. These heuristics provide ‘cognitive
shortcuts’ that can help designers generate more, and more varied, candidate
concepts to consider in the early phases of design.
Keywords
- creativity,
- conceptual design,
- design cognition,
- design tools,
- innovation
Disciplines
Publication Date
2016
Citation Information
Seda McKilligan, Shanna Daly, Colleen M Seifert and Richard J. Gonzalez. "Evidence-based design heuristics for idea generation" Design Studies (2016) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/seda-yilmaz/36/