Heuristic guidelines to support conceptual design

The creativity or unforeseeable nature of the design process, especially during the conceptual phase, makes it difficult to apply current design methodologies to aid designers and help them to reach a conceptual solution in an effective manner. In this paper we present some guidelines, based on experimental data about the evolution of the design process, with which to improve the effectiveness of the conceptual phase, above all as regards finding solutions. Here, effectiveness is taken as meaning quickly reaching a design solution that satisfies the requirements of the problem. Some of the guidelines obtained allow the effectiveness of a designer or a group of designers to be enhanced and are oriented towards controlling the divergence and convergence of the design space. Some guidelines for the development of interactive computer systems to aid designers are also put forwar