Resumen de Assessing design heuristics for idea generation in an introductory engineering course
Shanna R. Daly, James L. Christian, Seda Yilmaz, Colleen M. Seifert, Richard Gonzalez
Design Heuristics are prompts that encourage design space exploration during concept generation. Design Heuristics weredeveloped by analyzing trends in innovative products and patterns in ideation by engineering and industrial designers of varyingexperience levels. In this study, 48 freshmen engineering students were given a short design task and a set of twelve DesignHeuristics Cards. Each card described a heuristic, and gave two examples of its application in a product. Students were asked tocreate new design concepts using the heuristics. The results showed that the concepts created without Design Heuristics were lessdeveloped, and were often replications of known ideas or minor changes to existing products. However, concepts created usingDesign Heuristics resulted in more developed, creative designs. Students often applied the same heuristic in multiple ways,supporting our premise that the heuristics lead to exploring multiple solutions. The results also showed that some students readilyapplied the heuristics, while others struggled to understand how to apply them.
