Collaborative Research: Extreme Experience Design for Breaking Barriers to Innovation

Katja Hölttä-Otto（麻省理工学院-达特茅斯学院PI）， Carolyn Conner Seepersad（德州大学奥斯汀分校PI）， Art Markman（德州大学奥斯汀分校联合PI）该奖项的研究目标是建立一种结构化的概念设计方法，称为极限体验设计（EED），通过让设计师参与极限体验作为概念生成的一部分，刺激突破性产品的创新。极端体验将设计师暴露在改变的物理使用环境中（例如，潮湿或噪音），或改变与产品在物理、认知或感官上的互动方式（例如，通过手套限制灵巧性或通过耳塞限制听力）。这些体验旨在帮助设计师在各种情况下与客户产生共鸣，从而为与上下文相关的潜在需求类型进行设计，从而导致突破性产品。我们计划进行一系列实验来设计和完善EED方法，调查其有效性，并更好地了解设计师的预构思经验如何影响概念设计的结果。一个两阶段的实验设计方法将被用来测试EED方法的有效性。第一阶段将研究极端体验和设计师-原型交互（一起或单独）对概念设计过程结果的影响。第二阶段的目的是更密切地调查不同类型的极端体验是否会导致不同类型的创新。如果成功，这项研究的结果将为极端体验和设计师-原型交互对设计固定和设计师创新能力的影响提供基础知识。这些知识将被纳入一种新的概念设计方法，即EED，这种方法有可能通过让设计师参与预先构思和极端体验来提高他们产生创新概念的能力。此外，拟议的研究预计将产生重大的更广泛的影响。研究将从实验室转移到K-12学生、大学生、行业和公众，通过在线资源、外展计划、行业互动，以及提高通用设计能力，提高生活质量。

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Extreme Experience Design for Breaking Barriers to Innovation (0825461/0825713)Katja Hölttä-Otto (PI, UMass-Dartmouth), Carolyn Conner Seepersad (PI, UT Austin), Art Markman (Co-PI, UT Austin)The research objective of this award is to establish a structured conceptual design methodology, called Extreme Experience Design (EED), that stimulates innovation of breakthrough products by engaging designers in extreme experiences as part of concept generation. Extreme experiences expose the designer(s) to modified physical usage environments (e.g., moisture or noise) or altered means of interacting with the product physically, cognitively, or sensorially (e.g., limited dexterity via gloves or limited hearing via earplugs). These experiences are designed to help designers empathize with customers under a variety of conditions, and thereby design for the types of context-related latent needs that lead to breakthrough products. A series of experiments is planned to design and refine the EED methodology, to investigate its effectiveness, and to better understand how a designer's pre-ideation experiences affect the results of conceptual design. A two-phased Design of Experiments approach will be used to test the effectiveness of the EED methodology. The first phase will be designed to investigate the impact of extreme experiences and designer-prototype interaction, together and separately, on the outcomes of the conceptual design process. The second phase will be designed to investigate more closely whether different types of extreme experiences lead to different types of innovation.If successful, the results of this research will provide fundamental knowledge of the effects of extreme experiences and designer-prototype interaction on design fixation and a designer's ability to innovate. The knowledge will be incorporated in a new conceptual design approach, EED, that has the potential to enhance designers' abilities to generative innovative concepts by engaging them in pre-ideation, extreme experiences. Also, the proposed research is expected to have significant broader impacts. Research will be transferred from the laboratories to K-12 students, university students, industry, and the general public by means of online resources, outreach programs, industry interaction, and improved capabilities for universal design that improves quality of life.