Fixation Effects: Do They Exist in Design Problem Solving?

Designing involves the use of a number of different types of knowledge which vary from abstract knowledge to knowledge about physical forms and their attributes. Previous research had demonstrated that pictorial representations of an example design presented as part of the statement of a design problem resulted in designs that exhibited the characteristics of the pictorial example. This effect was referred to as design fixation. However, subsequent attempts to replicate the effect were largely unsuccessful with what appeared to be fixation under some conditions being closely related to familiarity with existing examples of the design problem. There were, however, other differences between the two experiments, particularly in terms of the level of experience of the designers and the design discipline of the participants. In the experiment reported, familiarity with existing examples of solutions of a design problem was controlled by choosing an appropriate problem from the set of problems used in the original research and designers of the same discipline and level of experience were used together with designers from different disciplines. In addition to the pictorial representation of a design solution used in the original research, an additional pictorial example was included. The results demonstrated clear fixation effects when both the discipline of the designers and the pictorial example were the same as those used in the original experiment. However, no effect of the pictorial example occurred with designers of different disciplines or the other pictorial example for designers from any discipline. Possible reasons for these results are discussed, with particular reference to the effects of a match between the principles used in the design solution and the discipline of the designers.