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Studies highlight that conceptualising and identifying a new engineering design problem (EDP) is vital, as the solution can benefit society. However, this essential activity, referred to as engineering design problem-exploring (EDPE), is lacking in practice in engineering design. Design engineers appear to focus on providing an engineering design solution (EDS) while their role in EDPE is rarely practised. A new EDP drives innovations and inventions, and there is a need to encourage, advance and sustain the practice of identifying new EDPs. The aim of this study is to empirically highlight the underlying determinants of the scarce practice of EDPE and suggest how to advance and sustain the practice. Interviews were conducted with 32 professionals within the engineering design community, comprising 28 practitioners and four specialists – a lecturer, an inventor, and two expert trainers in creativity and problem-solving. The results of the analyses informed the suggested approaches in this study to advance and sustain the EDPE practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research is to understand how different representations of requirements influence idea generation in terms of quantity, addressment, novelty, and variety of conceptual sketches. Requirements are testable statements of need, desires, and wishes of the stakeholders that are used by engineers to frame the problem. Project success is highly dependent on well-defined requirements documents. An experimental study was conducted with 52 fourth-year mechanical engineering undergraduate students. Two design problems are used with three different representations: a problem statement with embedded requirements, a problem statement and a traditional requirement list, and a problem statement with contextualized scrum stories. Each student addressed both design problems with two different representations of requirements. It was found that the use of contextualized scrum story representations significantly affected the novelty of solution fragments and addressment of requirements, while no significant change in variety and quantity was seen. Finally, it was found that quantity is not directly related to the number of requirements addressed in the sketches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In engineering and product development, it is challenging to identify the most promising opportunities to work on, translate those opportunities into well‐defined problem statements, generate many alternative concepts, and select/implement the most promising concepts. Many well‐known tools aim to put structured processes around the ideation or concept generation phase, including, but not limited to, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), Yilmaz et al. 77 Design Heuristics, Biomimicry, and Brainwriting. Herein, the authors identify thirteen methods specific to concept generation, clearly define and differentiate what these methods excel at, and provide structured reasoning as to why some methods are preferred in various situations over others. Following this reasoning the authors propose a Microsoft Excel‐based tool built off a modified version of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) that with user input will recommend the best set of ideation methodologies for the users' scenario. Seven criteria definitions were established to differentiate and rank each ideation methodology. Multiple test cases demonstrate the results of the selection tool to be predictable and rational. Possible future work includes adding additional ideation methodologies to the Excel based tool, further validation by more users, and expanding it to include tools for both problem definition and concept selection/implementation methodologies. The authors feel that doing great systems engineering must begin with a great architecture/concept, and this tool can facilitate routine development of highly innovative, high‐valued solutions that, when well executed via a rigorous systems engineering process, will create exceptional enterprise value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The study presented in this paper applies hidden Markov modeling (HMM) to uncover the recurring patterns within a neural activation dataset collected while designers engaged in a design concept generation task. HMM uses a probabilistic approach that describes data (here, fMRI neuroimaging data) as a dynamic sequence of discrete states. Without prior assumptions on the fMRI data's temporal and spatial properties, HMM enables an automatic inference on states in neurocognitive activation data that are highly likely to occur in concept generation. The states with a higher likelihood of occupancy show more activation in the brain regions from the executive control network, the default mode network, and the middle temporal cortex. Different activation patterns and transfers are associated with these states, linking to varying cognitive functions, for example, semantic processing, memory retrieval, executive control, and visual processing, that characterize possible transitions in cognition related to concept generation. HMM offers new insights into cognitive dynamics in design by uncovering the temporal and spatial patterns in neurocognition related to concept generation. Future research can explore new avenues of data analysis methods to investigate design neurocognition and provide a more detailed description of cognitive dynamics in design.

Engineering designers often generate multiple concepts to increase novelty and diversity among early solution candidates. Many past studies have focused on creating new concepts "from scratch;" however, designers at every level become fixated on their initial designs and struggle to generate different ideas. In line with prior work on design transformations, we propose a concept generation process of iterative transformation to create new ideas by intentionally introducing major changes in form, nature, or function to an existing concept. A study of this concept generation process recruited beginning engineering students likely to benefit from an alternative to "blank slate" generation. Working alone in a single test session, students generated an initial concept for a presented design problem. Then, they were instructed to generate another concept by transforming their initial design into a new concept and repeated this process to create three more concepts. In a second design round, students were asked to consider 7 Design Heuristics strategies to prompt possible transformations for their concepts. Beginning again with their initial concept, each student generated another set of four transformed concepts using iterative transformation. The analysis considered 60 initial concepts and 476 transformed concepts with and without the use of Design Heuristics. We created Design Transformation Diagrams to observe links (sequential, non-sequential, or both) between transformed concepts within each set of four concepts and between the two sets. Three patterns across the diagrams were identified: Fully Sequential, Sequential with Deviation, and Divergent. When aided by Design Heuristics, transformations included more non-sequential links, suggesting synthesis, refinement, and extension of other prior concepts, and resulting in more varied and distinct transformations. This iterative transformation process may support more diversity in concepts generated through a deeper exploration of related concepts without requiring an escape from the influence of existing concepts. Concept generation strategies like Design Heuristics may support engineering students as they learn to expand their early exploration of design concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human creativity originates from brain cortical networks that are specialized in idea generation, processing, and evaluation. The concurrent verbalization of our inner thoughts during the execution of a design task enables the use of dynamic semantic networks as a tool for investigating, evaluating, and monitoring creative thought. The primary advantage of using lexical databases such as WordNet for reproducible information-theoretic quantification of convergence or divergence of design ideas in creative problem solving is the simultaneous handling of both words and meanings, which enables interpretation of the constructed dynamic semantic networks in terms of underlying functionally active brain cortical regions involved in concept comprehension and production. In this study, the quantitative dynamics of semantic measures computed with a moving time window is investigated empirically in the DTRS10 dataset with design review conversations and detected divergent thinking is shown to predict success of design ideas. Thus, dynamic semantic networks present an opportunity for real-time computer-assisted detection of critical events during creative problem solving, with the goal of employing this knowledge to artificially augment human creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main focus of this article is to understand the process of how students develop design concepts. By analyzing the process of developing design concepts, and through the results of questionnaires and statistical analysis, key factors are identified to provide teachers with ways to assist students in developing sustainable design concepts in the future. The specific results are as follows. (1) Logical thinking and language expression are necessary factors to achieve excellent design concepts. To achieve this goal, sufficient case analysis, a well-equipped studio space and adequate teaching hours are indispensable. (2) General university students prefer to use models to interpret concepts, while technology university students prefer to use images. (3) In teaching, materials courses and construction courses must be moderately integrated with design courses so that teachers can provide students with more assistance in design teaching. (4) When students verbally explain their design concepts, it can easily lead to misunderstandings by the teacher. (5) About the SDGs, this suggests that there is still room for improvement in promoting them, and it is something that should be taken into account in teaching. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss real design work to gradually improve students' design skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on meaning generation in music and language cognition based on complexes of image schemas. We hypothesize that schemas are involved in dynamic interactions fostering online complex conceptual construction found both in language and elsewhere in various cognitive code expressions. Expanding on recent work, we propose that an account of image-schema interaction should include the notion of scalarity, a higher-order parameter which captures the intensity with which schemas occur and/or interact with one another. In that sense, schemas are proposed to have a binary valence (positive or negative) and a three-tier range of intensity levels. We focus on some examples of the interaction of force, path, link, balance, and containment image schemas in language and music to illustrate how a formal routine emerging from our proposal may help in addressing not only aspects of propositional semantics, but also affective and connotative nuances in musical and linguistic expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social design produces strategic, systematic solutions or new cultures as a response to the complexity of social changes and, in consequence, designers who are used to the traditional way of ideation may not be well prepared for the requirements of social design. This paper identified the characteristics of the concept generation of industrial design students participating in a social design practice as novices. Using the think-aloud protocol, we collected the conversations and self-reports of students (n = 42). We then conducted a qualitative analysis of the designers' activities with the inductive and deductive coding method. An effect of prior knowledge was found on the themes of concept, as well as on the concept generation strategies and modes that industrial designers would prefer. Through a factor analysis of the frequency of students' design activities, six concept generation strategies were clustered. There were eight concept generation modes for social design we summarized with the journeys of designers' activities. This study also revealed the effect of concept generation strategies and modes of industrial design students on the quality of their social design concepts. The results may also shed light on the question how we can foster the quality of industrial designers to adapt to the extension of disciplinary boundary in design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New space mission profiles arise from the convergence of reduced launch prices, miniaturization of electronics and the maturation of on-orbit servicing technologies. Additionally, a shift towards challenging Lunar objectives pushes for interconnected and complex-mode missions, and trends towards low-cost, sustainability and autonomy also encourage complex modes. The field of space logistics aims to develop conceptual and computational tools to optimize multi-node material-flow networks. However, existing tools insufficiently address the challenge of generating and comparing mission concepts methodically. Through a comprehensive literature review and a case study, we: (1) establish a need for a design support tool for early-phase complex space mission concept generation; (2) establish the potential of a novel approach using pattern languages; (3) propose and describe a concept for an innovative interdisciplinary tool using the identified methods; (4) verify the proposed support tool concept by replicating the Apollo study results as a proof of concept. We created a pattern language in which words are mission concept of operations elements, the grammar is an assembly algorithm allowing to generate options automatically, and the writing system is intuitively readable diagrams illustrating candidate mission modes. Key figures of merit are also automatically compiled. Among the concepts we generated for the Apollo proof of concept study, the four principal candidates considered in 1962 were captured and ranked in the same order as historically and in recent literature. Findings are consistent with Apollo's choice of designing two modules to be separated in Lunar orbit, thus confirming the proposed tool's potential. Decision-makers could be supported in the early stages of the mission design process, where most of the value is locked in, by complementing existing methods such as concurrent engineering. Efficiently designing complex-mode missions is key to enabling cost-effective and highly ambitious missions, therefore supporting cislunar economy development. • Gap for a design support tool for early-phase complex space mission design. • Potential of a novel approach using pattern languages and matheuristics. • Proposition and description of a concept for an innovative interdisciplinary tool using pattern languages and matheuristics. • Verification of the proposed support tool concept by recreating the Apollo study results as a proof-of-concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data-driven design is a process to reuse data sources and provide valuable information to provoke creative ideas in the stages of design. However, existing semantic networks for design creativity are built on data sources restricted to technological and scientific information. Existing studies build the edges of a semantic network on statistical or semantic relationships, which are less likely to make full use of the benefits from both types of relationships and discover implicit knowledge for design creativity. Therefore, to overcome the gaps, we constructed WikiLink, a semantic network based on Wikipedia, which is an integrated source of general knowledge and specific knowledge, with broad coverage of disciplines. The weight in WikiLink fuses both the statistic and semantic weights between concepts instead of simply one type of weight, and four algorithms are developed for inspiring new ideas. Evaluation experiments are undertaken, and the results show that the network is characterised by high coverage of terms, relationships and disciplines, which demonstrates and supports the network's effectiveness and usefulness. A demonstration and case study results indicate that WikiLink can serve as an idea generation tool for creativity in conceptual design. The source code of WikiLink and the backend data are provided open-source for more users to explore and develop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most difficult objective for students in an architectural design studio is to produce a design concept satisfyingly. This is due not just to the difficulty of selecting an appropriate method of approaching concepts, but also because of the many transformations associated with the concept's evolution over time. This research examines the modifications that occur throughout the conceptual phase of a design session. We hypothesize that while students' conception methods have been more abstract in creating a concept, they are subject to more alterations during the early phase of design. The research conducts concept generation and transformations by monitoring a group of fourth-grade architecture students through their design process. It also tries to link those transformations to the various methods utilized by students to create their concepts. It appears that the transformations that occurred throughout the design sessions were either formal or functional-oriented. Observations clarify that those transformations are linked to the sort of concept generating, which is either abstract or concrete. By observing the design sessions, the research was able to confirm that the modifications implemented to the design concepts were tied to the nature of their selection of methods of production. When compared to concrete nature concepts, abstract nature concepts were more vulnerable to transformations throughout the conceptual phase on the scope of form and function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The proposed approach in this paper can help designers to generate novel design structure solutions from first principles in conceptual design (especially in the field of mechanical engineering). It could be regarded as a supplement to existing functional design approaches. (1) Background: Functional design is an activity that is part of conceptual design; it aims to clarify customer needs and develop the functional architecture and solution concepts for a product or system under development. The existing functional design approaches mainly focus on assisting designers in searching for design solutions to desired functions, which rely too much on established design knowledge. This type of approach is usually characterized by the relevant design analogy, especially case analogy, or structure analogy. However, this cannot help to generate new design solutions if there is little established design knowledge. (2) Methods: To overcome this limitation, working principle and property are designated as intermediate transformation variables. The corresponding mapping relationships, from function to working principle, and from working principle to property, are comprehensively discussed. Then, an extended functional design approach is proposed, which is characterized by the function (F)–working principle (WP)–property (P)–structure (S) mapping process. The conceptual design of a self-adaptive luggage transfer device is taken as an example to illustrate the proposed approach. (3) Conclusions: Based on the working principle and the desired property, how to generate a possible structure solution according to an expected function is clarified explicitly. The proposed approach could be regarded as a complement to the existing functional design approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While user-centered design (UCD) methods have been utilized in the industrial design practice for new product development to discover the latent needs of people, there remain limitations of applying UCD methods to the design process. With limited time and resources, industrial designers' complex role to deal with multiple aspects of a product limits access to users. While translating research findings into concepts is a challenge to designers, their ideation processes are unstructured and ambiguous, and this mystical approach could negatively affect the success of new product development. The experience matrix is proposed as a structured ideation tool to guide designers ideating from user experience viewpoints. By examining user activities, product components, and operation environments as major elements comprising the design space, designers can frame problems and generate concepts effectively and systematically. The construct and procedure of the experience matrix are explained through its application to an industrial design project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mind-mapping is useful for externalizing ideas and their relationships surrounding a central problem. However, balancing between the exploration of different aspects (breadth) of the problem with respect to the detailed exploration of each of its aspects (depth) can be challenging, especially for novices. The goal of this paper is to investigate the notion of "reflection-in-design" through a novel interactive digital mind-mapping workflow that we call "QCue." The idea behind this workflow is to incorporate the notion of reflective thinking through two mechanisms: (1) offering suggestions to promote depth exploration through user's queries (Q) and (2) asking questions (Cue) to promote reflection for breadth exploration. This paper is an extension of our prior work (Chen et al., 2020, "Qcue: Queries and Cues for Computer-Facilitated Mind-Mapping," Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2020, GI 2020, Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society/Société canadienne du Dialogue Human-Machine, pp. 125-136) where our focus was mainly on the algorithmic development and implementation of a cognitive support mechanism behind QCue enabled by ConceptNet (a graph-based rich ontology with "commonsense" knowledge). In this extended work, we first present a detailed summary of how QCue facilitated the breadth-depth balance in a mind-mapping task. Second, we present a comparison between QCue and conventional digital mind-mapping, i.e., without our algorithm through a between-subjects user study. Third, we present new detailed analysis on the usage of different cognitive mechanisms provided by QCue. We further consolidate our prior quantitative analysis and build a connection with our observational analysis. Finally, we discuss in detail the different cognitive mechanisms provided by QCue to stimulate reflection in design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frame creation (framing) faces the challenge of envisioning novel viewpoints that point to value. This paper examines framing and uses Dorst's definition of frame from the perspective of engineering design theories and methods to highlight three of their key characteristics: (P1) problem-domain independence, (P2) generativity, and (P3) formal definition of a valuable design outcome or process in terms of principles. These properties support two statements. Statement 1: an engineering design theory or method satisfying (P1), (P2) and (P3) holds Dorst's definition of frame. The design principles on which the engineering design theory or method is based on are the pattern of relationships that characterizes valuable outcomes and processes in that frame. Statement 2: when a designer uses an engineering design theory or method satisfying (P3), the interaction between the design problem frame (A) and the engineering design theory or method frame (B), uncovers a new frame (C) with a definition of value. Illustrative examples based on axiomatic design and C-K theory demonstrate the practical application of these statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sketching is one of a noteworthy course which aids most individuals to provide lucid communication using visual skills. Arts courses have always created a significant impact on Engineering Education which transcends an Individual's capabilities. The basics of sketching are always deemed necessary for everyone and have acted as a prerequisite for various Engineering Courses along with Design Courses. Since there has been a fusion of Engineering and Design Curriculum trending nowadays, the importance of sketching has heightened up. Many courses like Product Design, Engineering Design Process, Design Thinking, Engineering Exploration demands students to learn the basics of sketching to perform adequately in their courses. Even in the Shear Engineering curriculum, certain parts of sketching are included in Engineering Graphics at a basic level. This paper envisages the probable content and importance of sketching courses in engineering education which enables students to enhance their visual communication skills in various areas of Engineering. Various skills of sketching like doodling, perspectives, finishing, exploded sketches, storytelling boards are predominantly used and explored further in Engineering Education to excel in their projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: Functional design is an activity that is part of conceptual design; it aims to clarify customer needs and develop the functional architecture and solution concepts for a product or system under development. The existing functional design approaches mainly focus on assisting designers in searching for design solutions to desired functions, which rely too much on established design knowledge. This type of approach is usually characterized by the relevant design analogy, especially case analogy, or structure analogy. However, this cannot help to generate new design solutions if there is little established design knowledge. (2) Methods: To overcome this limitation, working principle and property are designated as intermediate transformation variables. The corresponding mapping relationships, from function to working principle, and from working principle to property, are comprehensively discussed. Then, an extended functional design approach is proposed, which is characterized by the function (F)–working principle (WP)–property (P)–structure (S) mapping process. The conceptual design of a self-adaptive luggage transfer device is taken as an example to illustrate the proposed approach. (3) Conclusions: Based on the working principle and the desired property, how to generate a possible structure solution according to an expected function is clarified explicitly. The proposed approach could be regarded as a complement to the existing functional design approach.

Early-stage ideation is a critical step in the design process. Mind maps are a popular tool for generating design concepts and in general for hierarchically organizing design insights. We explore an application for high-level concept synthesis in early stage design, which is typically difficult due to the broad space of options in early stages (e.g., as compared to parametric automation tools which are typically applicable in concept refinement stages or detail design). However, developing a useful mind map often demands a considerable time investment from a diverse design team. To facilitate the process of creating mind maps, we present an approach to crowdsourcing both concepts and binning of said concepts, using a mix of human evaluators and machine learning. The resulting computer-aided mind map has a significantly higher average concept novelty, and no significant difference in average feasibility (quantity can be set independently) as manually generated mind maps, includes distinct concepts, and reduces cost in terms of the designers' time. This approach has the potential to make early-stage ideation faster, scalable and parallelizable, while creating alternative approaches to searching for a breadth and diversity of ideas. Emerging research explores the use of machine learning and other advanced computational techniques to amplify the mind mapping process. This work demonstrates the use of the both the EM-SVD, and HDBSCAN algorithms in an inferential clustering approach to reduce the number of one-to-one comparisons required in forming clusters of concepts. Crowdsourced human effort assists the process for both concept generation and clustering in the mind map. This process provides a viable approach to augment ideation methods, reduces the workload on a design team, and thus provides an efficient and useful machine learning based clustering approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on identifying the cognitive impact of virtual reality (VR) sketching on the concept generation phase of the design process. For an empirical study to analyse the cognitive influence of VR sketching, we conducted a pilot study for empirical research based on the protocol analysis of designers' cognitive activities in VR sketching and compared the results with those of traditional sketching. Spatial inspection was a key behavioural factor of VR sketching when considering its high-frequency repetitive and continuous interactions with a designer's representation activities throughout the concept generation process. The cognitive impact of VR sketching revealed the following decisive features: extension of solution space, enhancement of idea transformation and inducement to a holistic design approach for concept generation. These findings provide insight for understanding the cognitive role of advanced digital design tools for future design research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the different interactive behavioural patterns of designers at different design capability level in collaborative design, this study tries to reveal the interactive behaviours in the novice team, competent team and expert team respectively. The results show that during collaborative design, the team members adopted 4 interactive behaviours alternately, which resulted in 12 interactive behaviour stimulation modes. Moreover, designers in the three categories of teams displayed different interactive behaviours and interactive behaviour stimulation modes. Design educators can guide low-level designers according to the interactive behaviours and interactive behaviour stimulation modes of high-level ones. These findings are meaningful for assessing and promoting teamwork in design education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of studying the brain activations of 30 engineering students when using three different design concept generation techniques: brainstorming, morphological analysis, and TRIZ. Changes in students’ brain activation in the prefrontal cortex were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The results are based on the area under the curve analysis of oxygenated hemodynamic response as well as an assessment of functional connectivity using Pearson’s correlation to compare students’ cognitive brain activations using these three different ideation techniques. The results indicate that brainstorming and morphological analysis demand more cognitive activation across the prefrontal cortex (PFC) compared to TRIZ. The highest cognitive activation when brainstorming and using morphological analysis is in the right dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) and ventrolateral PFC. These regions are associated with divergent thinking and ill-defined problem-solving. TRIZ produces more cognitive activation in the left DLPFC. This region is associated with convergent thinking and making judgments. Morphological analysis and TRIZ also enable greater coordination (i.e., synchronized activation) between brain regions. These findings offer new evidence that structured techniques like TRIZ reduce cognitive activation, change patterns of activation and increase coordination between regions in the brain.

Design thinking holds the key to innovation processes, but is often difficult to detect because of its implicit nature. We undertook a study of novice designers engaged in team-based design exercises in order to explore the correlation between design thinking and designers' physical (observable) behavior and to identify new, objective, design thinking identification methods. Our study addresses the topic by using data collection method of "think aloud" and data analysis method of "protocol analysis" along with the unconstrained concept generation environment. Collected data from the participants without service design experience were analyzed by open and selective coding. Through the research, we found correlations between physical activity and divergent thinking, and also identified physical behaviors that predict a designer's transition to divergent thinking. We conclude that there are significant relations between designers' design thinking and the behavioral features of their body and face. This approach opens possible new ways to undertake design process research and also design capability evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personalized medicine is a trend where the approach to the treatment is focused on the patient, rather than an approach where "one size fits all". The objective is to develop devices and treatments where the needs of doctors and patients are attended, and the generated concepts address those needs. Additive manufacturing is an enabler of these types of devices, since it is a technology well adapted to complex shapes and one series production. In this paper, the authors present two case studies in rehabilitation, one for a knee positioning orthosis for an adolescent with cerebral palsy and the other for a prosthetic arm for a toddler. In both cases the adopted methodology is similar: from imageology images, a generation of concepts is embodied and manufactured through the use of 3D printers. The use of adequate materials allows for the generation of orthosis and prosthetics fully customized to the patients' needs and aligned with the doctor's recommendations. Personalized medicine will allow for a reduction of rejection levels, an increase of patient's quality of life and to a reduction or a delaying of downstream problems. The two case studies presented here demonstrate the potential for additive manufacturing in the area of rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]