Abstract

During early stages of the design process, ideation methods are used to generate a set of potential solutions based on a particular need. Solutions to design problems generally require both technology and user actions (or tactics) of some sort, although solution ideas may omit explicit mention of either technology or tactics. Previous research suggests that an explicit consideration of tactics in early-stage ideation enables design teams to improve the quantity, quality, variety, and novelty of their idea sets. In this paper, a novel ideation method known as the Random Prompts method is presented, and its performance is evaluated against a Brainwriting method. The results show that the Random Prompts method improves the overall quantity, novelty, and variety of idea sets over the Brainwriting method. In addition, the techniques used to encourage tactics ideation in both methods cause a significant increase in the fraction of ideas containing tactics when compared to sample ideation results from the literature. These conclusions hold value for improving design space exploration and co-development of tactics and technology.

Degree

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Mechanical Engineering

Rights

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