Impact of prototyping resource environments and timing of awareness of constraints on idea generation in product design

•A design task was given to participants from two different resource environments in Mexico.•Comparisons were made between the way participants responded to changes in available resources while completing the task.•Results show timing of the introduction of constraints can influence the outcome of the design task depending on the participant's normal prototyping environment.

Research and development laboratories in universities and firms around the world try to maximize innovation with a limited set of resources. However, questions remain about the influence of resource constraints on idea generation in early-stage product design. Multiple embedded case studies were conducted with engineering students and faculty at two university campuses in Mexico. Students developed sketches for products that would satisfy an open-ended design problem in a constrained-resource setting, where the variables were the timing of when information about these constraints was revealed, and the regular prototyping environment of the student. The evidence suggests that the timing of awareness of constraints can have an impact on design outcomes, but that this effect varies depending on the designer's regular prototyping resource environment.