Mitigation Strategies for Design Fixation

Molly C. Martini

Advisor: Deborah Boehm-Davis, PhD, Psychology

Committee Members: Eva Wiese, Robert Youmans

David J. King Hall, #2073A
January 25, 2018, 11:00 AM to 01:00 PM

Abstract:

Design fixation, the tendency to copy features from previously seen designs or concepts, is a persistent, invasive phenomenon that impedes innovation by minimizing the number of ideas explored when conceptualizing solutions. In a series of experiments, design fixation is looked at from both a behavioral and cognitive lens in order to assess what factors are responsible for creating a consistent and effective mitigation strategy. In particular, the current study investigates the role different viewing instructions may have on fixation while assessing the cognitive underpinnings driving behavioral effects. We found that rather than instruction, it is the relevancy of a given design feature that determines if conscious or unconscious processing is likely to take place and predicts not only if fixation will occur, but also what form that fixation will take- be it an exact duplication of a feature (“literal fixation”) or conceptually similar (“conceptual fixation”).