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