Design Creativity for Every Design Problems: A Design-by-Analogy Approach

In this article, we propose Design-by-Analogy (DbA) as an approach with the potential to effectively support designers’ creativity during ideation stage for design problems from Product, Service or Product Service Systems (PSS). We start by contrasting natural evolution and selection of species to economical human systems survival, where the options for companies are adaptation or mutation, where mutation offers innovation and a more immediate response to changing market conditions. We then present results from available DbA studies conducted in engineering and architecture domains as well as some recent studies in the service domain that support our conjecture that DbA may be able to support the development of innovative ideas for design problems from any source. We hope this article triggers discussion about possible avenues and pitfalls for DbA research and broadens our understanding of design related cognitive processes.