Fundamental Studies of Generating Concepts Through Design-by-Analogy

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This project seeks to investigate, develop, test, and deploy innovative design methods for generating concepts through analogies. Design-by-analogy is the area of idea generation in which proven solutions from a given domain provide visual, aesthetic, geometric, or functional similarity for use in another problem domain. The existence of this area is noted throughout recorded history. The first steam locomotives, for example, were based on analogies to the horse-drawn stagecoach. While the existence of analogies as inspiration for creative design is well known, the cognitive processes used in design-by-analogy, especially for complex problems such as in engineering, is far from understood. This gap in the research provides a unique opportunity to form a collaboration between two disciplines, engineering and psychology. Through this collaboration, the work on design-by-analogy will develop fundamental experimental data, principles, and techniques for enhancing both designer's and industry's ability to create and innovate.The research involves a series of experiments in design-by-analogy using subjects with an engineering background. In the first phase, three parallel experiments will be executed. These experiments will determine the appropriate representations for potential base domains for analogies (such as physical products, diagrams, and/or word descriptions), preferred depictions of analogies, such as functions for identifying possible analogies, and concept generation media, such as manipulatives for expressing design-by-analogy ideas. The results of these experiments, in the form of principles, will be integrated into a systematic design method to enhance the quality of the designs. Experiments with this method will explore its efficacy both with individuals and teams. Learning modules for concept generation will be created and assessed at a number of U.S. Universities. Assessments will be performed across ethnic, gender, and economic boundaries. Results will be distributed for general academic use and will be shared with industry to interject tested approaches for improving timely innovation.