Free ticketed event
Students often have difficulty generating multiple creative ideas for design problems. “Design
Heuristics” is an empirically derived and validated approach to product design ideation. Our
research has shown that concepts created by engineering students who used Design Heuristics
were more complex and creative designs. This workshop will include a review of relevant
research on idea generation along with an introduction to this research-grounded creativity tool.
Participants will practice using the Design Heuristics to generate concepts for design tasks and
discuss ways to implement it effectively in their classrooms.
Shanna R. Daly is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of
Michigan, earning her doctorate from Purdue University’s Engineering Education program in
2008. Her research focuses on design innovations through divergent and convergent thinking as
well as through deep needs and community assessments. Her work includes investigations of
concept generation practices of novices through practitioners, intersections that yield innovative
thinking, creativity in engineering, and problem space exploration. She teaches design and
entrepreneurship courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Seda Yilmaz is an Associate Professor of Industrial Design at Iowa State University. She earned
her doctorate from the University of Michigan’s Design Science Program in 2010. Her
dissertation was entitled, ‘Design Heuristics,’ and was the start of her research program on idea
generation. Her work focuses on design cognition and creativity, cross-disciplinary design team
dynamics, information processing in concept generation, cognitive strategy changes among
design domains, and implementation of these strategies in pedagogy.
Keelin Leahy is a visiting research scholar at Iowa State University.