Development of A Support for Effective concepts exploration to Enhance creativity of Engineering designers

Abstract

Aim This research aims to enhance the creativity of engineering designers by providing support that encourages exploration and the search for new design spaces in the conceptual phase of design, through the application of appropriate triggers.

Importance Creativity is a major controlling parameter for generating successful products in engineering design. It is actualized through the search for and exploration of design spaces. While extensive literature exists on creativity, there is:

No universally agreed definition.

No commonly accepted set of measures or influences against which enhancement methods can be evaluated.

Limited understanding of the search process through which designers generate solutions.

Insufficient clarity on how triggers aid designers in exploring design spaces.

To address these gaps, design experiments were conducted and analyzed using a newly developed tool for supporting transcription and protocol analysis.

Creativity A comprehensive set of definitions of creativity was analyzed and synthesized into a common definition using two methods.

Creativity measures were reviewed, categorized into clusters, and linked to this definition.

Influencing factors and creativity-enhancing methods were mapped to the definition, enabling targeted application of methods to exert specific influences.

Creativity Measure Engineering design creativity occurs when an agent generates problems, ideas, products, or solutions that are novel and useful.

Existing methods for measuring novelty and usefulness were reviewed.

A new method was proposed to assess creativity of technical products by evaluating their relative novelty and usefulness.

The method was validated against existing approaches and designers’ intuitive notions, showing strong alignment.

Search Earlier research on search and exploration was reviewed, identifying gaps.

Design experiments provided an in-depth understanding of search processes and identified general search types across conceptual design phases.

Relationships between creativity, experience, search characteristics, and time were established.

Designers were found to find and modify existing knowledge to generate concepts.

Guidelines were proposed to help designers proactively control outcomes in early design phases.

A design method was developed to consciously activate different search types for generating potential solutions.

Trigger Exposure to natural and engineered artefacts with similar function, behavior, or structure enhances ideation.

Systematic use of outcome triggers from both domains helps generate diverse solutions and develop them into prototypes.

Design experiments revealed process triggers and strategies for modifying outcome triggers during problem understanding, solution generation, and evaluation.

Representation and content of triggers significantly influence the representation, number, and quality of solutions.

Method Development A support system was developed to enhance exploration by providing process and outcome triggers during problem identification, solution generation, and evaluation phases.

The system includes a graphical user interface delivering triggers to designers.

Evaluation in a design firm showed that the support enabled concept exploration and search, increasing the creative output of designers.