Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T15:07:50.309Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Images of users and products shown during design processes increase users’ willingness to use the design outcome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2010

Bo T. Christensen
Affiliation:
Department of Marketing, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

Abstract

Two studies tested whether introducing images to designers during the design process lead to more useful design solutions as evaluated by the end users’ willingness to use the final design. It was hypothesized based on theories in cognitive science and design that there were at least two paths from images to usefulness. One path concerns analogically transferring within-domain properties to the design solution. The other path concerns mentally simulating end-user characteristics and preferences and inclusion of the user in the resulting design. Study 1 supported that random images led to increased outcome usefulness, and supported both hypothesized paths, by using within-domain products and end-user images as input. Study 2 showed that the image categories competed for attention, and that the within-domain product stimuli attracted the most attention and was considered the most inspirational to the designers. The practical use of the technique may lead to only marginally original products perhaps limiting its applicability to incremental innovation.

Type
Special Issue Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bailetti, A., & Litva, P. (1995). Integrating customer requirments into product designs. Journal of Product Innovation Management 12, 315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, R.C., & Cooper, R.G. (1979). Beyond the marketing concept. Business Horizons 22, 7683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beveridge, M., & Parkins, E. (1987). Visual representation in analogical problem solving. Memory & Cognition 15, 230237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bonnardel, N., & Marmèche, E. (2004). Evocation processes by novice and expert designers: towards stimulating analogical thinking. Creativity & Innovation Management 13, 176186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonnardel, N., & Marmèche, E. (2005). Favouring creativity in design projects: challenges and findings of experimental studies. In Studying Designers ‘05 (Gero, J., & Bonnardel, N., Eds.), pp. 2132. Sydney: University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Casakin, H., & Goldschmidt, G. (1999). Expertise and the use of visual analogy: implications for design education. Design Studies 20, 153175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, B.T., & Schunn, C.D. (2007). The relationship of analogical distance to analogical function and pre-inventive structure: the case of engineering design. Memory & Cognition 35, 2938.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, B.T., & Schunn, C.D. (2009 a). Putting blinkers on a blind man. Providing cognitive support for creative processes with environmental cues. In Tools for Innovation (Markman, A.B., & Wood, K.L., Eds.), pp. 4874. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, B.T., & Schunn, C.D. (2009 b). The role and impact of mental simulation in design. Applied Cognitive Psychology 23, 327344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, C., & Bower, J. (1996). Customer power, strategic investment and the failure of leading firms. Strategic Management Journal 17, 197218.3.0.CO;2-U>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiaans, H., & Andel, J.V. (1993). The effects of examples on the use of knowledge in a student design activity: the case of the “flying Dutchman.” Design Studies 14, 5874.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, D.W., Chattopadhyay, A., & Gorn, G.J. (1999). The use of visual mental imagery in new product design. Journal of Marketing Research 36, 1828.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, D.W., & Moreau, P. (2002). The influence and value of analogical thinking during new product ideation. Journal of Marketing Research 39, 4760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Bono, E. (1975). The Uses of Lateral Thinking. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Dugosh, K.L., & Paulus, P.B. (2005). Cognitive and social comparison processes in brainstorming. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 41, 313320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunbar, K. (1995). How scientists really reason: scientific reasoning in real-world laboratories. In The Nature of Insight (Sternberg, R.J., & Davidson, J.E., Eds.), pp. 365395. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dunbar, K., & Blanchette, I. (2001). The invivo/invitro approach to cognition: the case of analogy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5, 334339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firestien, R.L. (1996). Leading on the Creative Edge. Gaining Competitive Advantage Through the Power of Creative Problem Solving. Colorado Springs, CO: Piñon Press.Google Scholar
Forbus, K.D., Gentner, D., & Law, K. (1994). MAC/FAC: a model of similarity-based retrieval. Cognitive Science 19, 141205.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (1998). Analogy. In A Companion to Cognitive Science (Bechtel, W., & Graham, G., Eds.), pp. 107113. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (2002). Psychology of mental models. In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Smelser, N.J., & Bates, P.B., Eds.), pp. 96839687. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Gentner, D., Brem, S., Ferguson, R., & Wolff, P. (1997). Analogy and creativity in the works of Johannes Kepler. In Creative Thought: An Investigation of Conceptual Structures and Processes (Ward, T.B., Smith, S.M., & Vaid, J. Eds.), pp. 403459. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, D., Rattermann, M.J., & Forbus, K.D. (1993). The roles of similarity in transfer: separating retrievability from inferential soundness. Cognitive Psychology 25, 524575.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gentner, D., & Stevens, A. (1983). Mental models. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gick, M.L., & Holyoak, K.J. (1980). Analogical problem solving. Cognitive Psychology 12, 306355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gick, M.L., & Holyoak, K.J. (1983). Schema induction and analogical transfer. Cognitive Psychology 15, 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldschmidt, G. (1995). The designer as a team of one. Design Studies 16, 189209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldschmidt, G. (2001). Visual analogy: a strategy for design reasoning and learning. In Design Knowing and Learning: Cognition in Design Education (Eastman, C.M., McCracken, W.M., & Newstetter, W.C., Eds.), pp. 199220. Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinsz, V.B., Tindale, R.S., & Vollrath, D.A. (1997). The emerging conceptualisation of groups as information processors. Psychological Bulletin 121, 4364.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holyoak, K.J., & Koh, K. (1987). Surface and structural similarity in analogical transfer. Memory & Cognition 15, 332340.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holyoak, K.J., & Thagard, P. (1997). The analogical mind. American Psychologist 52, 3544.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Im, S., & Workman, J.P. Jr. (2004). Market orientation, creativity, and new product performance in high-technology firms. Journal of Marketing 68, 114132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaarsveld, S., & van Leeuwen, C. (2005). Sketches from a design process: creative cognition inferred from intermediate products. Cognitive Science 29, 79101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jansson, D.G., & Smith, S.M. (1991). Design fixation. Design Studies 12, 311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1983). Mental Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1989). Analogy and the exercise of creativity. In Similarity and Analogical Reasoning (Vosniadou, S., & Ortony, A., Eds.), pp. 313331. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The simulation heuristic. In Judgement Under Uncertainty. Heuristics and Biases (Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A., Eds.), pp. 201210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuipers, B. (1994). Qualitative Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kujala, S. (2003). User involvement: a review of the benefits and challenges. Behaviour & Information Technology 22, 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCrimmon, K.R., & Wagner, C. (1994). Stimulating ideas through creativity software. Management Science 40, 15141532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsh, R.L., Landau, J.D., & Hicks, J.L. (1996). How examples may (and may not) constrain creativity. Memory & Cognition 24, 669680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marsh, R.L., Ward, T.B., & Landau, J.D. (1999). The inadvertent use of prior knowledge in a generative cognitive task. Memory & Cognition 27, 94105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, R.E. (1999). Fifty years of creativity research. In Handbook of Creativity (Sternberg, R.J., Ed.), pp. 449460. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nersessian, N.J. (2002). The cognitive basis of model-based reasoning in science. In Cognitive Basis of Science (Carruthers, P., & Stich, S., Eds.), pp. 133153. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nijstad, B.A., Stroebe, W., & Lodewijkx, H.F.M. (2002). Cognitive stimulation and interference in groups: exposure effects in an idea generation task. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38, 535544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norman, D.A., & Draper, S.W. (1986). User Centered System Design; New Perspectives on Human–Computer Interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Novick, L.R. (1988). Analogical transfer, problem similarity, and expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 14, 510520.Google ScholarPubMed
Osborn, A.F. (1963). Applied Imagination, 3rd rev. ed.New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Perttula, M., & Sipilä, P. (2007). The idea exposure paradigm in design idea generation. Journal of Engineering Design 18, 93102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roozenburg, N.F.M., & Eekels, J. (1996). Product Design: Fundamentals and Methods. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ross, B.H. (1987). This is like that: the use of earlier problems and the separation of similarity effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 13, 629639.Google Scholar
Ross, B.H. (1989). Distinguishing types of superficial similarities: different effects on the access and use of earlier problems. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 15, 456468.Google Scholar
Rubin, J. (1994). Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Simon, H.A., & Hayes, J.R. (1976). The understanding process: problem isomorphs. Cognitive Psychology 8, 165190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., & Schumacher, J.S. (1993). Constraining effects of examples in a creative generations task. Memory & Cognition 21, 837845.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ulrich, K.T., & Eppinger, S.E. (2000). Product Design and Development, 2nd ed.New York: McGraw–Hill.Google Scholar
von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vosniadou, S., & Ortony, A. (1989). Similarity and analogical reasoning: a synthesis. In Similarity and Analogical Reasoning (Vosniadou, S., & Ortony, A., Eds.), pp. 17. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, T.B. (1994). Structured imagination: the role of category structure in exemplar generation. Cognitive Psychology 27, 140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, T.B. (1995). What's old about new ideas? In The Creative Cognition Approach (Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., & Finke, R.A., Eds.), pp. 157178. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ward, T.B. (1998). Analogical distance and purpose in creative thought: mental leaps versus mental hops. In Advances in Analogy Research: Integration of Theory and Data from the Cognitive, Computational, and Neural Sciences (Holyoak, K.J., Gentner, D., & Kokinov, B.N., Eds.). Sofia, Bulgaria: New Bulgarian University.Google Scholar
Ward, T.B., Patterson, M.J., Sifonis, C.M., Dodds, R.A., & Saunders, K.N. (2002). The role of graded category structure in imaginative thought. Memory & Cognition 30, 199216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed