Creative puzzlement: how deconstructing elements of object facilitates industrial design student’s imagination

This paper reports on a study that investigates how deconstructing the elements of an existing object prompts the industrial design student’s imagination. Design researchers have revealed that designers often keep their design representations e.g. idea sketches less resolved for exploring multiple interpretations or innovative ideas. Dealing with incomplete information is significant for their design imagination. What if industrial design students are given an image of object and asked to reduce/deconstruct its elements to explore different design concepts? Could it be an opportunity for their design imagination? In the study reported on this paper, two groups of design students were respectively given 2 different fidelity levels of the image represented the same French classical clock, and asked to explore new design concepts reducing/deconstructing its elements. The results revealed the patterns of the participants’ thinking process. Also, the different levels of visual fidelity appeared to lead each group to different approaches.