A fix for fixation? Rerepresenting and abstracting as creative processes in the design of information systems

Fixation prevents the associations that are bridges to new designs. The inability to see alternative solutions, or even to see how to map known solutions onto current problems, is a particularly acute problem in the design of software-intensive systems. Here, we explored two related ways of liberati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:AI EDAM 2010-05, Vol.24 (2), p.231-244
Main Authors: Zahner, Doris, Nickerson, Jeffrey V., Tversky, Barbara, Corter, James E., Ma, Jing
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abstraction
Alternatives
Cognition & reasoning
Creativity
Design
Design of Information Systems
Fluency: Originality
Rerepresentation
Software engineering
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Summary:Fixation prevents the associations that are bridges to new designs. The inability to see alternative solutions, or even to see how to map known solutions onto current problems, is a particularly acute problem in the design of software-intensive systems. Here, we explored two related ways of liberating fixated thinking: abstracting and rerepresenting. Although both techniques helped designers generate original ideas, not all the added ideas fit the problem constraints. We discuss ways the results might be used to generate reflective design aids that help designers to first generate original ideas and later prune them.
ISSN:0890-0604
1469-1760
DOI:10.1017/S0890060410000077