Environment-Based Design Methodology for Creative Design

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Innovation and creativity lie in the core of a nation's economy and an enterprise's competitiveness. Thus the significance of the research into innovative and creative design is self-evident. The question comes to if it is possible to conduct such research and how it should be effectively conducted. The area of my research is innovative product development. The ultimate goal of this research is to assist human designers in making innovative design decisions in a time-and-cost effective manner. In achieving this goal, my research has been conducted at three streams: 1) the basic research in discovering knowledge about design activities; 2) the applied research in developing Environment-Based Design (EBD) methodology; and 3) industrial applications of my basic and applied research. The objective of my basic research is to discover knowledge about design activities, which leads to a science of design. This has been supported by my Canada Research Chair Award. This effort has led to a new theoretical model of creative design and a physiologically based experimental approach to understanding design activities. The theoretical model is based on a mathematical representation of and logical reasoning about design activities. The Physiological approach studies designer's behavior by using designer's physiological data such as heart rate variability (HRV), eye movements, Galvanic skin response (GSR), and Electroencephalography (EEG). The objective of my applied research is to develop Environment-Based Design (EBD) methodology, based on the up-to-date knowledge about design activities. This has been supported by my previous NSERC Discovery Grants over the last ten years. The EBD includes three activities: environment analysis, conflict identification, and concept generation, which generate and refine iteratively the design problem, design knowledge and design solutions. A few technologies have been generated to support the three activities: 1) a roadmap to guide the collection of sufficient design requirements based on the environment in which the product is to work; 2) the Recursive Object Model (ROM) for extracting meanings of a design text; 3) effective strategy for eliciting design requirements through asking the right questions; 4) algorithms to transform a design text to computational models; 5) strategies to identify and resolve conflicts in design; and 6) approaches to produce design solutions. The industrial applications of my research include providing novel and effective design techniques, tools and systems for innovative product development. The industrial projects have been supported through industrial research contracts and NSERC partnership projects. The EBD methodology has been applied to more than ten industrial projects from various sectors such as aerospace, medical devices, recruitment, construction, and municipality. As a continuation of my previous research, this proposed research program aims to achieve the following three objectives: Objective 1: to quantify the mental stress - creativity relationship along the entire design process; Objective 2: to develop effective and efficient methods to enhance creative design process; and Objective 3: to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of new methods for creative design. The proposed research program will significantly impact on the evolution of design science and design innovation. Meanwhile, it will provide exceptional opportunities to train HQPs.