Design heuristics in engineering concept generation

Innovation in design depends on successful concept generation. The ideation stage of design is intended to produce multiple, varied concepts from which to develop and choose. Often, instruction on idea generation methods is not offered in engineering classes; however, when taught, it is com-monly through techniques like brainstorming, which lacks specific ways to generate designs. Further, existing ideation strategies are not based on evidence from designers or rigorous testing through empirical studies. PURPOSE This study investigated how engineering students and practitioners generated ideas. We focused on how designers used product characteristics to define concepts, and how previous concepts were trans-formed into new solutions by modifying their characteristics. Our methodology is based on our pre-vious work identifying Design Heuristics in engineering solutions, defined as cognitive prompts that facilitate exploration of multiple designs during concept generation. METHOD Think-aloud recordings and concept sketches were collected from 36 engineering students and prac-titioners (with varying levels of experience) as they generated ideas for a novel design task in a labo