Design fixation experiments often report that participants exposed to an example solution generate fewer ideas than those who were not. This reduced ‘idea fluency’ is generally explained as participants’ creativity being constrained by the example they have seen. However, the inclusion of an example also introduces other factors that might affect idea fluency in the experiments. We here offer an additional explanation for these results: participants not exposed to the example tend to generate ideas with little elaboration, while the level of detail in the example encourages a similar level of elaboration among stimulated participants. Because idea elaboration is time consuming, non-stimulated participants record more ideas overall. We investigated this hypothesis by reanalyzing data from three different studies; in two of them we found that non-stimulated participants generated more ideas and more ideas containing only text, whilst stimulated participants generated ideas that were more elaborated. Based on the creativity literature, we provide several explanations for the differences in results found across studies. Our findings and explanations have implications for the interpretation of creativity experiments reported to date and for the design of future studies@en

This paper presents a new service development process model for transport services for the inclusion of wheelchair users. In line with the principles of Universal Design, the new model aims to develop services for the widest possible range of users, including people using wheelchairs. The model is based on existing models, case studies in Brazil and Germany, and complemented with specific support material regarding wheelchair users, ultimately devised to guide the development of services that include such users. The paper illustrates a demonstration of the model in a real situation in Germany, with the development of a service for wheelchair users where early consideration of their needs results in clear benefits.@en

This paper describes a study designed to investigate the effect of concept representation types on the use of abductive reasoning by decision makers when selecting early stage innovation concepts for further development. According to prior research, abductive reasoning can be instrumental to decision makers in terms of generating testable hypotheses about an innovation concept's future developments into concrete, viable product or service offerings. It has furthermore been linked with an increase in project acceptance rates. Here, an experiment is described testing whether visual concept representations promotes higher levels of abductive reasoning than textual concept representations or a combination of visuals and text. The results show that when purely visual concept representations were used, the participants showed a significant higher level of abductive reasoning than when this visual representation was complemented with text. This has managerial implications pertaining to how innovation concepts could/should be presented to selection committees or individuals in companies seeking to increase the amount of innovation projects that pass through a first screening process.@en

This is a report from an international workshop focused on the future of design fixation research within the broader context of work on creativity and inspiration. Fixation studies have already generated many useful results but there are clear opportunities to better connect with work done on other related concepts and work done in other disciplines. This would allow fixation research to broaden and strengthen its methodological approaches, offering richer insights into how design ideas originate and how they subsequently evolve. Such knowledge could then be applied to influence the development of design education, training and tools. In this way, fixation research would maximize its potential to provide insights into the creative process, improve design practice and thereby support innovation.

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When tackling problems, designers might be inspired by different sources, whether concrete or abstract. The more concrete sources often comprise representations of potential solutions or examples of existing designs. The more abstract sources often represent the desirable properties of engineered systems, such as modular system architectures. We performed an experiment with 60 novice designers to compare the inspiration effects from these two types of stimuli. Participants were asked to solve a design problem, having been exposed to a concrete example design, an abstract system property, both, or no stimulus at all. Their design work was assessed according to four metrics: fluency, diversity, commonness, and conformity. Exposure to either the example design or the system property reduced the fluency and diversity of ideas, and exposure to both stimuli reduced these measures even further. While there was no difference in the inspiration effects from the example and the property in terms of fluency, diversity, and commonness; results for conformity showed that each stimulus constrained participants differently: encouraging ideas similar to one type of stimulus, while discouraging ideas similar to the other type. In combination with other work on inspiration and fixation, these findings can help shape how design is taught and how inspiration tools are developed.@en

In this study, we investigated how questions influence problem (re)framing and idea shaping in design discourse. We analysed the question-asking behaviour of a multidisciplinary group of students who were tasked with designing new birthday celebration concepts. We focused on the sessions that took place during the idea generation phase of the project. Our analysis showed that high-level questions facilitated the emergence of inflection moments during idea generation. It also illustrated that, prior to the inflection moments, reflection built the basis on which high-level questions were formulated. We interpreted that type of reflection as resistance to design fixation. Based on our findings, we proposed a model of how design inquiry facilitates inflection moments during idea generation and counteracts design fixation.

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Inspiration is a widely recognized phenomenon in everyday life. However, researchers still know very little about what the process of inspiration entails. This paper investigates designers’ approaches when selecting inspirational stimuli during the initial phases of a design process. We conducted a think-aloud protocol study and interviews with 31 design Masters students while generating ideas for a design problem. The results indicate that searching for and selecting stimuli require different levels of cognitive effort, depending on whether there is unlimited or limited access to stimuli. Furthermore, three important stages of the inspiration process were identified: keyword definition, stimuli search and stimuli selection. For each of these stages, we elaborate on how designers define keywords, which search approaches they use and what drives their selection of stimuli. This paper contributes to an understanding of how designers can be supported in their inspiration process in a more detailed manner.@en

Time and budget constraints frequently prevent designers from consulting with end-users while assessing the ease of use of the products they create. This has resulted in solutions that are difficult to use by a wide range of users, especially the growing older adult population and people with different types of impairments. To help designers with this problem, capability-loss simulators have been developed with the aim of temporarily representing users who are otherwise difficult to access. This paper questions the reliability of existing tools in providing designers with meaningful information about the users' capabilities. Consequently, a new capability-loss simulation toolkit is presented, followed by its empirical evaluation. The new toolkit proved to be significantly helpful for a group of designers identifying real usability problems with everyday devices.

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