Abstract
Design idea generation is a process rooted in individual knowledge and is often considered a precedent-based type of reasoning, where knowledge is continuously transformed to produce new insights. Selecting and organizing inspirational sources has a profound impact on how industrial designers generate creative solutions and creates its own challenges. Many authors have focused on what materials designers look for while searching for inspiration. However, there is less research concerning the approaches used to guide the process of envisioning design solutions when using these sources. Therefore, we conducted open-ended semi-structured qualitative interviews with 12 designers, to learn about how experienced industrial designers select inspirational materials and transform the generated insights into ideas, including the design thinking and mindset involved. The aim is to expand novice designers’ knowledge of idea generation.
Keywords
industrial design, idea generation, design source, design methods
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.561
Citation
Sun, Y., Münster, S., and Sommer, C. (2018) Changes in Design Research: sources and methods of idea generation in industrial design, in Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28 June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.561
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Changes in Design Research: sources and methods of idea generation in industrial design
Design idea generation is a process rooted in individual knowledge and is often considered a precedent-based type of reasoning, where knowledge is continuously transformed to produce new insights. Selecting and organizing inspirational sources has a profound impact on how industrial designers generate creative solutions and creates its own challenges. Many authors have focused on what materials designers look for while searching for inspiration. However, there is less research concerning the approaches used to guide the process of envisioning design solutions when using these sources. Therefore, we conducted open-ended semi-structured qualitative interviews with 12 designers, to learn about how experienced industrial designers select inspirational materials and transform the generated insights into ideas, including the design thinking and mindset involved. The aim is to expand novice designers’ knowledge of idea generation.