A Multi-plane Model of Design

• How do creative insights occur during the design process? • Can their frequency and quality be enhanced? • What are the underlying cognitive mechanisms? © 2006 Kotovsky and Cagan Overview • A conceptual framework or model for design problem-solving • Brief introduction of that framework • Examples of some of the work that led to it • Presentation of some current work within it © 2006 Kotovsky and Cagan A Multi-plane Model of Design • Search is viewed as occurring within a representation depicted as a plane • Multiple planes equiv. to different representations • Search for new representations/planes activated by impasses often leading to insights • Search can involve both conscious and non-conscious processes often operating in parallel or resulting in parallel search within multiple planes © 2006 Kotovsky and Caga