Creativity in Product Development

The present book proposes a new descriptive model the so called “Ideation Model” (IM) of the design process from a dual cognitive-engineering perspective partlybased on existing models from both fields and previous work performed. The modeladdresses the issue of modeling the ideation or the front-end phase of theengineering design/product development process representing the interface of cognitive psychology and engineering design. Three domains – inspirationdecomposition and integration – and three spaces – problem-space idea-space andconcept-space are considered as elements of the model. The iterative flow of the engineering design process passes through these domains in a semi-controlled waythrough a sequence of specialization and generalization process loops in – andbetween the spaces. Empirical examinations - prescriptive and descriptive - to the IMare performed using both novice and expert designers belonging to the academia. The empirical work indicates these designers worked in a manner largely consistent with the model.