Mitigation of Design Fixation in Engineering Idea Generation: A Study on the Role of Defixation Instructions

Abstract

Design fixation is considered to be a major factor influencing engineering idea generation. When fixated, designers unknowingly replicate the features from their own initial ideas or presented examples. The study reported in this paper investigates the effects of warnings about the undesirable features on design fixation. The authors hypothesize that if designers are given warnings about the undesirable example features along with the reasons for those warnings, fixation to those features can be mitigated. In order to investigate this hypothesis, a controlled experiment is conducted with novice designers. The participants are randomly assigned to one of the three experiment groups: a Control, Fixation or Defixation. Participants in all the groups generate ideas for the same design problem. It is observed that even when the warnings are present, designers replicate the flawed features in their ideas. Further, this paper compares said result with the findings in the existing literature.