Innovation in Analogical Design: a Model-based Approach

Analogical reasoning, it is commonly accepted, plays an important role in innovation and creativity. Since design often is innovative, and can be creative, the design task provides a good context for exploring the role of analogy in innovation and creativity. In the IDEAL project, we are exploring the processes of innovation and creativity in the context of conceptual (or preliminary, qualitative) design of physical devices. In particular, we are developing a model-based approach to innovation and creativity in analogical design: our core hypothesis is that innovative analogical design involves both reasoning from past experiences in designing devices (in the form of analogs or cases) and comprehension of how those devices work (in the form of device models or theories). In this paper, we focus on the issues of understanding feedback on the performance of a design, discovery of new design constraints, and reformulation of the design problem, and describe how the model-based approach addresses these issues.