Methodological diversity and theoretical integration: Research in design fixation as an example of fixation in research design?

ABSTRACT: Over the last three decades, design fixation research has emerged as a distinct and productive area of design creativity research, and of design research more generally. In studying an applied aspect of human behaviour, fixation research is unusually restricted in its methodological choices, primarily adopting experimental and statistical approaches. The few relevant qualitative studies remain isolated from the core experimental literature. This limited diversity and limited integration restricts our ability to interpret the relevance of prior work, plan new studies and impact practice. By viewing research as a creative design activity, I argue that the fixation research community is well placed to study and change its own behaviour, and also to inform the behaviour of other research disciplines.This work was partly supported by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K008196/1)

The proliferation of functions: Multiple systems playing multiple roles in multiple supersystems

AbstractWhen considering a system that performs a role, it is often stated that performing that role is afunctionof the system. The general form of such statements is that “the function ofSisR,” whereSis the functioning system andRis the functional role it plays. However, such statements do not represent how that single function was selected from many possible alternatives. This article renders those alternatives explicit by revealing the other possible function statements that might be made when eitherSorRis being considered. In particular, two forms of selection are emphasized. First, when we say “the function ofSisR,” there are typically many systems other thanSthat are required to be in operation for that role to be fulfilled. The functioning system,S, does not perform the role,R, all by itself, and those systems that supportSin performing that role might also have been considered as functioning. Second, when we say, “the function ofSisR,” there are typically many other roles thatSplays apart fromR, and those other roles might also have been considered functional. When we make function assignments, we select both the functioning system,S, and the functional role,R, from a range of alternatives. To emphasize these alternatives, this article develops a diagrammatic representation of multiple systems playing multiple roles in multiple supersystems.This work  was partly supported by an Early Career Fellowship (EP/K008196/1) from the  UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and by an  Interdisciplinary Fellowship in Philosophy (Crausaz Wordsworth 2013/14)  from the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities  (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge. This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9520930&fileId=S0890060414000626

Creativity and fixation in the real world: A literature review of case study research

There are several prior case studies of design creativity which relate to design fixation. There is also a broader literature of qualitative research surrounding these cases, both within and beyond the design literature. However, these various texts are widely distributed, not well connected and seemingly not well known. This paper reviews the relevant literature, collecting many of these studies together for the first time. This allows the texts to be compared, their common themes to be identified and future work to be planned. More of such studies are necessary to increase the breadth and depth of accounts of creative design. This would permit connections and contrasts to be made and promote methodological diversity within research on inspiration and fixation.UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant number EP/K008196/1

Describing complex design practices with a cross-domain framework: learning from Synthetic Biology and Swarm Robotics

This paper reports on the development of a cross-domain framework for describing complex design practices. The framework is grounded in studies of two different complex design fields: Synthetic Biology and Swarm Robotics. In the first study, we interviewed practitioners in Synthetic Biology, identifying three essential aspects of complex design problems and practices. The first of these aspects is the characterisation of system complexity, the second is the design objective taken with respect to this complexity, and the third is the design approach applied to realise this objective. In the second study, we interviewed designers in Swarm Robotics, confirming the domain generality of the three aspects identified in the first study and permitting a comparison to be made of how the two fields differ from each other in these aspects. Considered together, the two studies provide the basis for building a cross-domain framework for describing complex design practices. Such a framework is presented here, not to exhaust all possible descriptions of complex design practice but rather to provide a structured yet adaptable way of highlighting the important aspects of these descriptions. Indeed, each aspect of complex design can be can be broken down into different elements depending on the design contexts under consideration. Having such a framework enables designers to identify fundamental similarities and differences both between and within fields.This work was funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K008196/1).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00163-016-0219-

Resilience in Sociotechnical Systems: The Perspectives of Multiple Stakeholders

Abstract We often design sociotechnical systems with the explicit intention that they will exhibit “resilience” in the face of unpredictable change. But there is often great uncertainty about how to de ne resilience—or achieve it. This article explores what design can learn about resilience by eliciting, combining, and contrasting multiple stakeholder perspectives within a single sociotechnical system. During one-on-one interviews, we asked participants to structure their ideas about resilience into a map of the overall system they work within. The maps were then used to analyze the system according to three key resilience characteristics. We found that the nature of their viewpoints was in uenced by their ideas about the sys- tem’s boundaries, purpose, and timescale. Our ndings give rise to a better understanding of the nature of change in sociotechnical systems and how to design for their resilience

Information and interaction requirements for software tools supporting analogical design

AbstractOne mode of creative design is for designers to draw analogies that connect the design domain (e.g., a mechanical device) to some other domain from which inspiration is drawn (e.g., a biological system). The identification and application of analogies can be supported by software tools that store, structure, present, or propose source domain stimuli from which such analogies might be constructed. For these tools to be effective and not impact the design process in negative ways, they must fit well with the information and interaction needs of their users. However, the user requirements for these tools are seldom explicitly discussed. Furthermore, the literature that supports the identification of such requirements is distributed across a number of different domains, including those that address analogical design (especially biomimetics), creativity support tools, and human–computer interaction. The requirements that these literatures propose can be divided into those that relate to the information content that the tools provide (e.g., level of abstraction or mode of representation) and those that relate to the interaction qualities that the tools support (e.g., accessibility or shareability). Examining the relationships between these requirements suggests that tool developers should focus on satisfying the key requirements of open-endedness and accessibility while managing the conflicts between the other requirements. Attention to these requirements and the relationships between them promises to yield analogical design support tools that better permit designers to identify and apply source information in their creative work.Dr Gülşen Töre Yargın' s work was supported by the International Post Doctoral Research Fellowship Programme [BİDEB-2219] from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). Dr Nathan Crilly' s work was supported by an Early Career Fellowship [EP/K008196/1] from the UK s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).This is the accepted manuscript. It will be embargoed until 27/10/2015. The final version is available from CUP at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9673077&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S089006041500007

‘A way to understand things better through doing’: Creative action and intrinsic meaning in engineering design

This paper argues for the broadening of the field of design creativity research in two main ways. Firstly, if we studied not just creative ideas, but also creative action, then this would better reflect some aspects of how creative design occurs ‘in the wild’. Secondly, if we adopted not just cognitive psychological perspectives, but also sociocultural approaches then this would broaden our methodological and theoretical base and permit richer descriptions of design creativity. To illustrate these points, we report on the findings of an ethnographic interview study conducted with award-winning engineers and designers. Based on this material, we propose a way of reframing the process of designing as creative action, looking at the role of intrinsic motivation and personal values