Training future designers: A study on the role of physical models

Abstract

Design fixation is a major factor that hinders design innovation. When designers fixate, they replicate example features and the ideas from the their past experiences in their designs, creating more redundant designs. Building and testing designs is one potential approach for reducing design fixation. The study presented in this paper investigates the role of building working prototypes and warnings about negative example features in mitigating design fixation in freshmen. Two hypotheses are investigated here: (1) The fixation to undesirable example features can be mitigated by building and testing physical models of the designs; (2) providing suitable warnings to novice designers can help them in avoiding design fixation. These hypotheses are tested using a quasi-experiment conducted during a freshmen class project. Students complete their projects in three different experimental groups. One group receives a fixating example with an undesirable feature. The feature negatively influences the functionality of the design. The second group receives the same fixating example with warnings about the undesirable feature. The third group completes the project without the help of an example (control). Students are instructed to build and test their designs. The designs are photographed before and after testing. The occurrence of the flawed example feature in each design is studied. The results show that providing warnings about the undesirable feature does not mitigate design fixation. Meanwhile, as students build and test their ideas, they identify the flaws and gradually mitigate the fixation. Their final designs, after many cycles of testing, contain significantly fewer flawed features. This shows that building and testing physical models helps students in improving the functionality of their designs. In our engineering classrooms, building and testing skills need to be encouraged in order to nurture a future generation of innovative designers. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013.