The effects of biological examples in idea generation

In engineering design, analogies can be used in conceptual design to aid in generating new and novel design ideas. In this paper, a cognitive study was performed to assess the impact of biological examples, which serve as surface dissimilar analogies, in the idea generation process during conceptual design. In this study, participants were exposed to biological examples during the idea generation process. These results were then compared to those of participants receiving no examples and to those receiving human-engineered examples. The results suggest that exposure to biological examples in idea generation can increase the novelty of design ideas generated after exposure without inhibiting the variety of the design ideas generated, unlike human-engineered examples which resulted in decreased variety.