Elsevier

Design Studies

Volume 64, September 2019, Pages 169-212
Design Studies

Creativity and fixation in the real world: Three case studies of invention, design and innovation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2019.07.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Presents three new cases, each illustrated with prototype sequences.

  • Creative blocks and breakthroughs are associated with earlier progress.

  • Multiple design spaces are described as co-evolving at different levels of detail.

  • Creative work is described in terms of recognising and accepting the value of ideas.

This paper reports on the design of three novel products: a hand saw, electrical plug and bicycle wheel. Each case study draws on interviews with the designers and analysis of their prototypes. The focus is on how the product ideas originated, how and why they changed and why those changes weren't made earlier. In emphasising the nature of creative work throughout long and complex projects, three themes are emphasised: (1) creative challenges and creative blocks can result from earlier breakthroughs (which makes them difficult to overcome); (2) multiple design spaces co-evolve at different levels of detail (not just simple problem- and solution-spaces); (3) those developing new ideas need to recognise and accept those ideas (not just generate and develop them).

Section snippets

Method

Three case studies were conducted, each focussing on projects that involved the development of a radically new product rather than some incremental advance. To permit each of the cases to be better understood, we here describe how the projects were identified, how the data was collected and how the reports were produced.

To permit the study of creative work in the design process, we sought project examples where a change in the product was clearly evident, either from prototype to production,

Narrative analysis

We present chronological accounts of the cases here: (1) the truss saw – redesign of the jewellers' fret saw to incorporate a truss structure in the frame; (2) the folding plug – redesign of the British electrical plug to allow it to fold flat during transportation; (3) the suspended wheel – redesign of the bicycle wheel to incorporate radial suspension. Each case is preceded with a background statement that explains the history of the product category and the technical objectives and

Thematic analysis

The three narratives presented above offer chronological descriptions of the design projects, documenting the development of new ideas through the accounts of the designers and through the representations of the prototypes constructed. Further analysis of the interview transcripts identified several recurring themes that connect to the prevailing discourse on design creativity and fixation. For example, the projects share many features with the studies reviewed by Crilly (2019), especially with

Limitations and future work

The three projects described here were all undertaken by designers working largely alone or sometimes with one or two other people (at certain phases of the project). We might be interested in studying the practices of designers working primarily in isolation for at least two different reasons: first, many designers work that way and such work makes up part of the innovation landscape (Freeman and Engel, 2007, Meyer, 2005; but also see; Singh & Fleming, 2010); second, even when working as part

Conclusions

Creative design is central to innovation and is thus highly valued in industry and society. Developing a better understanding of design creativity is necessary, both to improve design education and to provide better support to practising designers. In this paper we have sought to contribute to that understanding by adding to the relatively small number case studies documenting real world creative design projects. In particular, our cases are distinct from those that precede them in focussing on

Declaration of interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors are extremely grateful to Brian, Min-Kyu and Sam for agreeing to participate in the study and for being so generous with their time and other resources over an extended period. We are also grateful for the very helpful comments from the editors and reviewers involved in with this submission. The technical illustrations were produced by Rob Woods based on the original case study materials collected by the researchers. Permission to reproduce extracts from BS 1363–1:2016 is granted by

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