Publication | Design Studies 2013

Using Templates and Mapping Strategies to Support Analogical Transfer in Biomimetic Design

Abstract

Using Templates and Mapping Strategies to Support Analogical Transfer in Biomimetic Design

Hyunmin Cheong, L. H. Shu

Design Studies 2013

While biological phenomena can serve as meaningful analogies to inspire innovative design, previous studies found that designers often use descriptions of biological phenomena in non-analogous ways. Two experiments were conducted with novice designers to investigate how to decrease the non-analogous use of biological phenomena in concept generation. Properly applied, a causal relation template, developed based on Gentner’s framework of analogical reasoning, decreased participants’ non-analogous concepts. We identified two further interventions that reduce the tendency to develop non-analogous concepts: (1) one-to-one mapping instructions and (2) mapping the source analog to multiple problem-independent scenarios before concept generation. Understanding and reducing non-analogous application of biological phenomena may enable designers to more fully take advantage of biomimetic, or biologically inspired, design.PDF

Related Resources

Publication

2020

A subtractive manufacturing constraint for level set topology optimization

We present a method for enforcing manufacturability constraints in…

Publication

2014

Kitty: Sketching Dynamic and Interactive Illustrations

We present Kitty, a sketch-based tool for authoring dynamic and…

Publication

2016

A Combinatorial Design Workflow for Search and Prioritization in Large-Scale Synthetic Biology Construct Assembly

We propose a strategy to effectively search the large solution space…

Publication

2017

Annotation Graphs: A Graph-Based Visualization for Meta-Analysis of Data based on User-Authored Annotations

User-authored annotations of data can support analysts in the activity…

Get in touch

Something pique your interest? Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about Autodesk Research, our projects, people, and potential collaboration opportunities.

Contact us