Influence of Analogical Domains and Abstraction Levels on Novelty of Designs
Year: 2015
Editor: Amaresh Chakrabarti, Toshiharu Taura and Yukari Nagai
Author: Keshwani, S.; Chakrabarti, A.
Institution: 1CPDM, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Section: Design Knowledge and Theory
Page(s): 062-069
ISBN: 978-1-904670-60-5
Abstract
The overall goal of this work is to improve creativity of technical products by supporting novelty of designs. Analogy - an important aspect of creative thinking, is studied for its influence on novelty under the influence of two parameters: ‘distance between source-and target-domain’, and ‘abstraction level’. Two studies are conducted to test the influence of these two parameters on novelty of designs. Analogical domain is varied as: biological-, cross- and in-domain. Here, biological-domain analogies are those drawn from biological domain; cross- and in-domain analogies are drawn from engineering domain. ‘Level of abstraction’ of an analogy is defined here as the relative depth at which an analogy is explained, and is varied as deep, shallow and surface levels of abstraction. Statistical analysis showed that cross-deep and biological-surface analogies generated the most novel designs when compared to other abstraction levels within cross and biological domains respectively. Overall, cross-domain analogies were found to generate most novel designs as compared to other domains.
Keywords: analogical abstraction, analogical domains, design for novelty