The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 7 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Design and other types of fixation
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“While prior work has extensively documented what usability issues experts identify [35, 52], far less is known about how experts reason through these issues across stages of perception, interpretation, and projection [43, 76].”
From Criticmate: Stagewise Human–AI Co-Critique in Single-Screen UI Evaluation (2026) · cites this paper as [76]
In the citing paper
“Prior research shows that when these stages are disrupted, people tend to fi xate and explore less effectively; conversely, scaffolding the cycle from perception through comprehension to projection can broaden search and improve outcomes [43, 46, 76].”
From Criticmate: Stagewise Human–AI Co-Critique in Single-Screen UI Evaluation (2026) · cites this paper as [76]
In the citing paper
“Creative design processes are subject to measurable fixation effects [21, 42, 71], through which the final proposed solutions to a design problem are inappropriately constrained by features of earlier solution candidates [2]”
From Homogenization Effects of Large Language Models on Human Creative Ideation (2024) · cites this paper as [71]
Citations
Cites
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Reasoning in humans. II. The solution of a problem and its appearance in consciousness
Maier, N. R. F. (1931) · Journal of Comparative Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0071361 · Cited by 621
Artificial Intelligence in Design ’92
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Effects of examples on the results of a design activity
Purcell, A. T., & Gero, J. S. (1992) · Knowledge-Based Systems · doi:10.1016/0950-7051(92)90026-c · Cited by 113
Self-citationFixation effects: do they exist in design problem solving?
Purcell, A. T., Williams, P., Gero, J. S., & Colbron, B. (1993) · Environment and Planning B Planning and Design · doi:10.1068/b200333 · Cited by 72
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Items 201–300 of 551
Todoroff, E. C., Shealy, T., Milovanovic, J., Godwin, A., & Paige, F. (2020) · Journal of Civil Engineering Education · doi:10.1061/(asce)ei.2643-9115.0000037 · Cited by 18
Zimmermann, L., Chen, T., & Shea, K. (2018) · Artificial intelligence for engineering design analysis and manufacturing · doi:10.1017/s0890060417000324 · Cited by 18
“Further, when presented with increasingly complex design challenges, shortcomings such as design fixation (Purcell & Gero, 1996), confirmation bias (Hallihan et al., 2012), and difficulty in modeling (Gibson et al., 2014) may lead to suboptimal designs.”
BackgroundEge, D. N., Øvrebø, H. H., Stubberud, V., Berg, M. F., Elverum, C. W., Steinert, M., & Vestad, H. (2025) · Artificial intelligence for engineering design analysis and manufacturing · doi:10.1017/s0890060425000010 · Cited by 29
“Much like a novice designer, ChatGPT clings to one concept and is reluctant to try something else (Purcell & Gero, 1996), illustrated by the answer: ” If you’ve iterated through multiple design improvements and observed that the increase in launch distance has plateaued, it’s a good indication that…”
Quantitative Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Idea Generation in the Wild
Liikkanen, L. A., Hämäläinen, M. M., Häggman, A., Björklund, T., & Koskinen, M. P. (2011) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-21753-1_14 · Cited by 17
Jia, M., Jiang, S., Hu, J., & Qi, J. (2022) · Journal of Mechanical Design · doi:10.1115/1.4056259 · Cited by 17
Creative exploration using topic-based bisociative networks
Ahmed, F., & Fuge, M. (2018) · Design Science · doi:10.1017/dsj.2018.5 · Cited by 17
“This exploration is useful during conceptual design when divergent thinking can help avoid fixation [Jansson and Smith, 1991; Purcell and Gero, 1996] and dead-end branching [Shah et al., 2003], leading to more creative solutions [Siangliulue et al., 2015].”
BackgroundEntrepreneurs as designers of problems worth solving
Bianchi, M., & Verganti, R. (2021) · Journal of Business Venturing Design · doi:10.1016/j.jbvd.2022.100006 · Cited by 20
Enhancing Innovation Through Biologically Inspired Design
Weissburg, M. J., Tovey, C. T. C., & Yen, J. (2010) · doi:10.3968/j.ans.1715787020100302.001 · Cited by 17
“The act of reflection deepens students’ understanding across all aspects of the class [Schoen, 1983; Anthony et al., 2007; Purcell and Gero, 1996].”
BackgroundModelling a contradiction-oriented design approach for innovative product design
Ko, Y.-T., Chen, M.-S., Yang, C.-C., & Zheng, M.-C. (2015) · Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part B Journal of Engineering Manufacture · doi:10.1177/0954405414564810 · Cited by 17
“However, the problem representations that trigger the recall of these semi-abstract solution classes will include inappropriate assumptions, and designers may fixate on recent or salient solution types, even when they know they are inappropriate.(29) What is often needed is to reformulate the contradictions and constr…”
BackgroundBeyond the concept: characterisations of later-stage creative behaviour in design
Snider, C. M., Dekoninck, E. A., & Culley, S. J. (2016) · Research in Engineering Design · doi:10.1007/s00163-016-0218-3 · Cited by 17
“…outputs (Finke 1990; Ward 1994; Finke 1995); and to work on fixation, which finds that initial priming of certain frames limits the scope of the output to those frames (Jansson and Smith 1991; Purcell and Gero 1996) which must be broken through a process known as de-fixation (Linsey et al. 2010).”
BackgroundInfluentialThe Relationship Between Design Outcomes and Mental States During Ideation
Hu, W.-L., Booth, J., & Reid, T. (2017) · Journal of Mechanical Design · doi:10.1115/1.4036131 · Cited by 17
Transforming early concepts with Design Heuristics
Leahy, K., Daly, S. R., Murray, J. K., McKilligan, S., & Seifert, C. M. (2018) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-018-9473-0 · Cited by 18
“Ideation tools can provide strategies and prompts to help designers push past mental blocks (such as design fixation; Jansson and Smith 1991; Purcell and Gero Purcell and Gero 1996; Crilly 2015), and facilitate production of new or modified ideas.”
BackgroundImpacting Designer Creativity Through IT-Enabled Concept Generation
English, K., Naim, A. M., Lewis, K. E., Schmidt, S., Viswanathan, V. K., Linsey, J., McAdams, D. A., Bishop, B., Campbell, M. I., Poppa, K. R., et al. (2010) · Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering · doi:10.1115/1.3484089 · Cited by 17
Abstraction framework to support students in learning creative conceptual design
Fiorineschi, L. (2018) · Journal of Engineering Design and Technology · doi:10.1108/jedt-02-2018-0017 · Cited by 17
The boundary of crowdsourcing in the domain of creativity✰
Ren, J., Han, Y., Genc, Y., Yeoh, W., & Popovič, A. (2020) · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120530 · Cited by 16
An exploration-based approach to computationally supported design-by-analogy using D3
Song, H., Evans, J., & Fu, K. K. (2020) · Artificial intelligence for engineering design analysis and manufacturing · doi:10.1017/s0890060420000220 · Cited by 16
“…of introducing analogies and examples is also examined in the exploration of design fixation (Jansson and Smith, 1991; Smith and Blankenship, 1991; Purcell and Gero, 1996; Chrysikou and Weisberg, 2005), which occurs when a designer stubbornly clings to a single design when better ideas are…”
BackgroundA facilitated expert‐based approach to architecting “openable” complex systems
Szajnfarber, Z., & Vrolijk, A. (2018) · Systems Engineering · doi:10.1002/sys.21419 · Cited by 16
Toward a situated cognition approach to design
Bonnardel, N., & Moscardini, L. (2012) · European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics · doi:10.1145/2448136.2448140 · Cited by 16
Toh, C. A., & Miller, S. R. (2013) · doi:10.1115/detc2013-13087 · Cited by 16
“This limiting adherence to existing examples is termed design fixation [12] and has been shown to affect different levels of expertise [15] and different design disciplines [13].”
BackgroundHsu, C.-C., Wang, T.-I., Lin, K.-J., & Chang, J.-W. (2018) · Thinking Skills and Creativity · doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2018.07.001 · Cited by 16
Fox, S. (2018) · Technology in Society · doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2018.12.009 · Cited by 16
Generating and transforming representations in design ideation
Laamanen, T.-K. (2016) · Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja · Cited by 16
How Templated Requirements Specifications Inhibit Creativity in Software Engineering
Mohanani, R., Ralph, P., Turhan, B., & Mandić, V. (2021) · IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering · doi:10.1109/tse.2021.3112503 · Cited by 15
“1) The domain; for instance, mechanical engineers fixate more than industrial designers [76]; 2) examples—common examples causes more fixation than unusual or rare examples [77]; 3) defixating instructions—explicit instructions to avoid features of given or existing artifacts [78]; 4) providing good quality examples t…”
BackgroundUNDERSTANDING FIXATION: A STUDY ON THE ROLE OF EXPERTISE
Viswanathan, V. K., & Linsey, J. (2011) · Cited by 15
The promise of cognitive neuroscience in design studies
Seitamaa‐Hakkarainen, P., Huotilainen, M., Mäkelä, M., Groth, C., & Hakkarainen, K. (2014) · Proceedings of DRS · doi:10.21606/drs.2014.62 · Cited by 15
Idea representation and elaboration in design inspiration and fixation experiments
Vasconcelos, L. A., Neroni, M. A., Cardoso, C., & Crilly, N. (2017) · International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation · doi:10.1080/21650349.2017.1362360 · Cited by 15
Design problem solving with biological analogies: A verbal protocol study
Cheong, H., Hallihan, G. M., & Shu, L. H. (2014) · Artificial intelligence for engineering design analysis and manufacturing · doi:10.1017/s0890060413000486 · Cited by 15
AROUND YOU: HOW DESIGNERS GET INSPIRED
Gonçalves, M., Cardoso, C., & Badke‐Schaub, P. (2011) · Cited by 15
Sawyer, R. K., & Henriksen, D. (2023) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197747537.003.0001 · Cited by 16
A Computational Method to Support Product Architecture Design
Wyatt, D. F., Wynn, D. C., & Clarkson, P. J. (2009) · doi:10.1115/imece2009-11138 · Cited by 14
““Fixation” effects [6] may further hinder designers from thinking beyond known architectures.”
BackgroundThe effect of explicit instructions in idea generation studies
Vasconcelos, L. A., Neroni, M. A., & Crilly, N. (2018) · Artificial intelligence for engineering design analysis and manufacturing · doi:10.1017/s0890060417000658 · Cited by 14
“These metrics are central to many fixation studies (e.g., Jansson & Smith, 1991; Purcell & Gero, 1996; Dahl & Moreau, 2002; Linsey et al., 2010; Cardoso & Badke-Schaub, 2011; Youmans, 2011a, b; Vasconcelos et al., 2017) and they can provide a fairly objective measurement (i.e., a direct count of…”
BackgroundMethodThe Impact of Product Dissection Activities on the Novelty of Design Outcomes
Toh, C. A., Miller, S. R., & Kremer, G. E. O. (2012) · doi:10.1115/detc2012-70421 · Cited by 14
“Contrary to prior work on Design Fixation that states that exposure to examples have the potential to limit the novelty of the generated ideas [20, 21], product dissection activities encourage a deeper”
ResultNEW DESIGN HEURISTICS IN THE DIGITAL ERA
Jin, X., & Dong, H. (2020) · Proceedings of the Design Society DESIGN Conference · doi:10.1017/dsd.2020.321 · Cited by 14
“Designers naturally generate ideas, even without tools (Purcell and Gero, 1996); these natural approaches are developed based on designers’ experiences and preferences for problem-solving (Kirton, 2004).”
BackgroundMitigating Design Fixation: A Visualization Tool for Enhancing Situation Awareness
Hwang, D., Choi, B., Bae, S., & Park, W. (2021) · Journal of Mechanical Design · doi:10.1115/1.4048814 · Cited by 14
Idea characteristics arising from individual brainstorming and design heuristics ideation methods
Murphy, L. R., Daly, S. R., & Seifert, C. M. (2022) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-021-09723-0 · Cited by 14
“…practitioners and students have been shown to struggle with ideation, often generating only a few, obvious solutions (Jansson & Smith, 1991; Leahy et al., 2020; Purcell & Gero, 1996) or fixating on early ideas (Jansson & Smith, 1991; Linsey et al., 2010; Purcell & Gero, 1996; Leahy et al., 2020).”
BackgroundGuo, J., & McLeod, P. L. (2014) · Creativity Research Journal · doi:10.1080/10400419.2014.929433 · Cited by 14
“Arnold Toynbee (1964), a British historian whose life work was spent in studying the rise and fall of civilization in Western society claimed that creativity constitutes humankind’s ultimate resource, and creativity scholars believe it is the major driving force that propels social and technical innovation (e.”
BackgroundGive Design a Break? The Role of Incubation Periods during Idea Generation
Cardoso, C., & Badke‐Schaub, P. (2009) · Cited by 14
Exploring the Design Cognition of Concept Design Reviews Using the FBS-Based Protocol Analysis
Gero, J. S., & Jiang, H. (2016) · Purdue University Press eBooks · doi:10.2307/j.ctv15wxp3j.13 · Cited by 14
Self-citationSearching for Inspiration: An In-Depth Look at Designers Example Finding Practices
Miller, S. R., & Bailey, B. P. (2014) · ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE) · doi:10.1115/detc2014-35450 · Cited by 14
“This section is meant to 2 Copyright © 2014 by ASME summarize this research and provide the foundation for the proposed work.”
Providing an Overview during the Design of Complex Products
Jarratt, T. A. W., Eckert, C. M., Clarkson, P. J., & Stacey, M. (2004) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-2393-4_13 · Cited by 21
Is requirements engineering inherently counterproductive
Ralph, P., & Mohanani, R. (2015) · doi:10.5555/2821481.2821489 · Cited by 13
Preference for Complexity and Asymmetry Contributes to Elaboration in Divergent Thinking
Kharkhurin, A. V., & Yagolkovskiy, S. R. (2019) · Creativity Research Journal · doi:10.1080/10400419.2019.1641687 · Cited by 13
“A number of studies in various domains of creative production show that the semantic structure of a category has a substantial influence on what people produce (e.g., Purcell & Gero, 1996; Smith, Ward, & Schumacher, 1993; Ward, Patterson, Sifonis, Dodds, & Saunders, 2002).”
BackgroundExtending the Ecological Interface Design process—Integrated EID
Kant, V., & Sudakaran, J. S. (2021) · Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries · doi:10.1002/hfm.20933 · Cited by 12
“…novice design students in multiple areas of design (e.g., Akin, 2001; Blyth et al., 2011; Bucciarelli, 1988, 2002a, 2002b; Cross, 2001, 2010, 2019; Eastman et al., 2001; Gero, 2006; Gero et al., 2013; Henderson, 1998; Johansson Sköldberg et al., 2013; Papantonopoulos, 2004; Purcell & Gero, 1996).”
Thinking and representing in design
Stacey, M., & Lauche, K. (2005) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-061-0_9 · Cited by 13
“Ignoring these associations can prove impossible, even when one is actively trying (Jansson and Smith, 1991; Purcell and Gero, 1996 ).”
BackgroundTseng, I., Moss, J., Cagan, J., & Kotovsky, K. (2008) · ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE) · doi:10.1115/detc2008-49276 · Cited by 13
“, [9][15]), and so it is not surprising that we found them as well.”
BackgroundImpact of Design Representations on Creativity of Design Outcomes
Cascini, G., Fiorineschi, L., & Rotini, F. (2019) · Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science · doi:10.3233/jid180012 · Cited by 13
“Design Fixation (Jansson & Smith, 1991; Purcell & Gero, 1996) constitutes a complex research argument, originally described in experimental psychology literature, and where many variables need to be taken under consideration (Vasconcelos & Crilly, 2016).”
Word Graphs in Architectural Design
de Vries, B., Jessurun, J., Segers, N., & Achten, H. H. (2004) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-2393-4_28 · Cited by 13
Reducing and Perceiving Design Fixation: Initial Results from an NSF-Sponsored Workshop
Linsey, J., Tseng, I., Fu, K. K., Cagan, J., & Wood, K. L. (2009) · Cited by 13
From brains to branch points: cognitive constraints in navigational design
Jul, S., & Furnas, G. W. (2004) · Cited by 13
Managing concept decision making in product development practice
Kihlander, I. (2011) · KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) · Cited by 13
Dyer, L., Power, J., Steen, A. P., Wallis, L., & Davison, A. (2021) · Design Studies · doi:10.1016/j.destud.2021.101055 · Cited by 15
Is Requirements Engineering Inherently Counterproductive?
Ralph, P., & Mohanani, R. (2015) · doi:10.1109/twinpeaks.2015.12 · Cited by 12
Viswanathan, V. K., & Linsey, J. (2013) · Lecture notes in mechanical engineering · doi:10.1007/978-81-322-1050-4_9 · Cited by 12
“This result is consistent with many prior studies on design fixation [1, 3, 6–8, 10].”
ResultDesigning as playing games of make-believe
Poznic, M., Stacey, M., Hillerbrand, R., & Eckert, C. M. (2020) · Design Science · doi:10.1017/dsj.2020.8 · Cited by 12
“Moreover, designers can suffer from what psychologists call fixation, the inability to free themselves from past ideas even if they are explicitly told to do so (see Jansson & Smith 1991; Purcell & Gero 1996; Crilly 2015).”
BackgroundDesign for Manufacturability-Based Feedback to Mitigate Design Fixation
Abdelall, E. S., Frank, M. C., & Stone, R. (2018) · Journal of Mechanical Design · doi:10.1115/1.4040424 · Cited by 13
Liu, R., Wu, T., Chu, J., & Qu, P. (2025) · Thinking Skills and Creativity · doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101967 · Cited by 13
Evaluating Creativity Support Tools via Homogenization Analysis
Anderson, B. R., Shah, J. H., & Kreminski, M. (2024) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3613905.3651088 · Cited by 11
“…of homogeneity in parallel, we can better judge whether a CST’s homogenization effects stem from promotion of individual-level creative fixation [1, 16, 29, 43] (i.e., increasing the propensity of users to become stuck in creative “ruts”) or from influencing all users to ideate along similar lines.”
BackgroundPriming Designers Leads to Prime Designs
She, J., Seepersad, C., Hölttä-Otto, K., & MacDonald, E. (2018) · Understanding innovation · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-60967-6_13 · Cited by 9
Systematic design of a new gearbox for concrete mixers
Fiorineschi, L., Papini, S., Pugi, L., Rindi, A., & Rotini, F. (2020) · Journal of Engineering Design and Technology · doi:10.1108/jedt-10-2019-0254 · Cited by 11
Advantages Of Evolutionary Computation Used For Exploration In The Creative Design Process
von Buelow, P. (2007) · Journal of Integrated Design & Process Science archive · doi:10.5555/1517398.1517400 · Cited by 11
Constraints and Conditions: Drivers for Design Processes
Eckert, C. M., & Stacey, M. (2014) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4471-6338-1_19 · Cited by 11
“( Designing is often influenced by fixation on the features of previous similar products, see for instance Purcell and Gero, 1996; Altshuller, e.g. 1988, discusses various sources of psychological inertia and how they can be overcome within TRIZ.)”
Teng, P.-S., Cai, D., & Yu, T. (2014) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-014-9264-1 · Cited by 11
“Guilford’s results influenced the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) method in terms of its use of four major features (fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration) to evaluate creative ideas (Torrance 1974; Purcell and Gero 1996; Segers et al. 2005).”
MethodYazıcı, Y. E. (2012) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-012-9220-x · Cited by 11
Bonnardel, N., & Bouchard, C. (2017) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316274385.022 · Cited by 11
Wang, S., Okada, T., & Takagi, K. (2023) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2023.1183025 · Cited by 11
Benchmarking AI design skills: insights from ChatGPT's participation in a prototyping hackathon
Ege, D. N., Øvrebø, H. H., Stubberud, V., Berg, M. F., Steinert, M., & Vestad, H. (2024) · Proceedings of the Design Society · doi:10.1017/pds.2024.202 · Cited by 10
“…skill-based knowledge (Vestad et al., 2019) and past experiences to consider multiple solutions, ChatGPT exhibits a form of 'design fixation,' a trait often observed in novice engineering students who might latch onto their first successful design due to limited experience (Purcell and Gero, 1996).”
Use of personas in co-designing learning experiences with teachers: An exploratory case study
Kerr, J. T., & Kelly, N. (2024) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-024-09900-x · Cited by 10
“Finally, a well-recognised concern in design work is that designers, especially nov-ice designers, can become fixated on solutions early in the design process in a way that stops them from discovering spaces of design that are rich with potential (Purcell & Gero, 1996).”
Children’s Responses to Divergent and Convergent Design Feedback
Schut, A., Klapwijk, R., Gielen, M. A., & de Vries, M. J. (2023) · Journal of design and technology education/Design and technology education · doi:10.24377/dteij.article1311 · Cited by 10
“Complete the Drawing!”: The Relationship between Imagination and Executive Functions in Children
Veraksa, N. E., Gavrilova, M., & Veraksa, А. (2022) · Education Sciences · doi:10.3390/educsci12020103 · Cited by 17
“Uncertainty and openness related to their solving require imaginationʹs active involvement [25,26].”
BackgroundNavigating the Spectrum of Conventionality: Toward a New Model of Creative Thinking
Stoeffler, K., & Daley, N. (2023) · Journal of Intelligence · doi:10.3390/jintelligence11020021 · Cited by 10
“…rut of sorts allowing us to find common or correct solutions, but can challenge our ability to ‘get off the beaten path’ to less familiar and less conventional territory (Adamson 1952; Agogué et al. 2014a, 2014b; Cassotti et al. 2016; Duncker 1945; Purcell and Gero 1996; Smith et al. 1993).”
BackgroundBeyond ICT: How industrial design could contribute to HCI research
Thies, A., Ljungblad, S., & Claesson, I. S. (2015) · Swedish Design Research Journal · doi:10.3384/svid.2000-964x.15122 · Cited by 9
Boosting Creativity in Idea Generation Using Design Heuristics
Seifert, C. M., Gonzalez, R., Yılmaz, S., & Daly, S. R. (2015) · Design Thinking · doi:10.1002/9781119154273.ch6 · Cited by 10
Iterative transformations for deeper exploration during concept generation
Clancy, S. M., Murphy, L. R., Daly, S. R., & Seifert, C. M. (2023) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-023-09813-1 · Cited by 12
“However, the constraints of human memory often produce design fixation (Crilly, 2015; Cross, 2001; Jansson & Smith, 1991; Purcell & Gero, 1996), where a presented example continues to influence the generation of later alternatives.”
PHYSICAL EXAMPLES IN ENGINEERING IDEA GENERATION: AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Viswanathan, V. K., & Linsey, J. (2012) · Cited by 9
Cavieres, A., Gentry, R., & Al-Haddad, T. (2009) · International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC) · doi:10.22260/isarc2009/0065 · Cited by 9
“This phenomenon of accepting the “already-known” or the quickest solution is known “design fixation” (Purcell & Gero 1996; Buelow 2007) and we argue that the tendency to follow it becomes particularly strong when the number of parts involved in a problem is high.”
BackgroundEngineering meets creativity: a study on a creative tool to design new connections
Bleuzé, T., Ciocci, M.-C., Detand, J., & Baets, P. D. (2014) · International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation · doi:10.1080/21650349.2014.892217 · Cited by 9
Supporting Novice Engineers in Idea Generation using Design Heuristics
Murphy, L., Daly, S. R., McKilligan, S., & Seifert, C. M. (2018) · ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition · doi:10.18260/1-2--28887 · Cited by 9
“Previous studies of idea generation have documented the tendency of designers to become “fixated” on initial ideas [17, 19, 34].”
BackgroundEckert, C. M., Wyatt, D. F., & Clarkson, P. J. (2009) · Creativity and Cognition · doi:10.1145/1640233.1640274 · Cited by 9
“Textbooks typically assume that designs are created from scratch, however in practice design is frequently incremental: many products evolve and/or have parts of their design reused in later products [20], and even when opportunities for more radical innovation exist, engineers may be “fixated” on the previous solutio…”
BackgroundAn Approach to Study Associations Between Design Concepts and Design Outcomes
Takai, S., Esterman, M., & Midha, A. (2014) · Journal of Mechanical Design · doi:10.1115/1.4028992 · Cited by 9
Koh, E. C. Y., & Lessio, M. P. D. (2018) · Research in Engineering Design · doi:10.1007/s00163-018-0290-y · Cited by 9
Perttula, M. K. (2006) · Aaltodoc (Aalto University) · Cited by 9
Fuzzy Linkography: Automatic Graphical Summarization of Creative Activity Traces
Smith, A., Anderson, B. R., Otto, J., Karth, I., Sun, Y., Chung, J. J. Y., Roemmele, M., & Kreminski, M. (2025) · Creativity and Cognition · doi:10.1145/3698061.3726915 · Cited by 8
“Kan et al. [36] also suggest that a move with fully saturated forelinks (i.e., forelinks to every move that follows it) may be indicative of fixation on a single idea [1, 17, 34, 63] and thus a lack of forward progress in the episode past the forelink-saturated move.”
THE WRONG THEORY PROTOCOL: A DESIGN THINKING TOOL TO ENHANCE CREATIVE IDEATION
Svihla, V., & Kachelmeier, L. (2020) · International Conference on Design Creativity (ICDC) · doi:10.35199/icdc.2020.28 · Cited by 8
“Yet, it is clear that designers rely on precedent for inspiration (Crilly, 2015), so understanding how they use their knowledge and experiences as inspiration rather than fixation is a key concern (Purcell & Gero, 1996).”
BackgroundBrennan, J. B., Miney, W. B., Simpson, T. W., Jablokow, K., & McComb, C. (2022) · Journal of Mechanical Design · doi:10.1115/1.4056222 · Cited by 9
Design Cognition in Data Visualization
Parsons, P. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-34738-2_8 · Cited by 8
Design Ideas and Impasses: the Role of Open Goals
Moss, J., Cagan, J., & Kotovsky, K. (2007) · Guidelines for a Decision Support Method Adapted to NPD Processes · Cited by 8
A network tool to analyse and improve robustness of system architectures
Paparistodimou, G., Duffy, A. H. B., Whitfield, R. I., Knight, P. A., & Robb, M. (2020) · Design Science · doi:10.1017/dsj.2020.6 · Cited by 8
“Also, explorative design of a system’s architecture is often influenced by previous designs and intuitive expert opinions, which can cause design fixation effects (Purcell & Gero 1996).”
BackgroundAn Experimental Comparison of Analogy Representation Effects on Creative Outcomes
Koronis, G., Casakin, H., & Silva, A. (2023) · The Journal of Creative Behavior · doi:10.1002/jocb.611 · Cited by 8
Jiang, H., & Ye, C.-C. (2013) · InTech eBooks · doi:10.5772/52460 · Cited by 8
“This claim echoed with Purcell and Gero’s [10] study of precedence fixation effect.”
MethodAssessing the impact of educational differences in HCI design practice
Antunes, P. A., Xiao, L., & Pino, J. A. (2013) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-013-9254-8 · Cited by 8
“In the same line of research, Purcell and Gero (1996) investigated differences between engineering and design students.”
BackgroundResultIndividual Differences in Tendency for Design Fixation
Lai, S. L., & Shu, L. H. (2017) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44989-0_18 · Cited by 8
Computational Explorations of Creativity and Innovation in Design
Sosa, R. (2005) · Cited by 8
Both Generic Design and Different Forms of Designing
Visser, W. (2006) · Proceedings of DRS · doi:10.21606/drs.2006.72 · Cited by 8
Mapping Novice Designer Behavior to Design Fixation in the Early-Stage Design Process
Jia, M., Jiang, S., Qi, J., & Hu, J. (2024) · Journal of Mechanical Design · doi:10.1115/1.4064649 · Cited by 7
Unveiling How Examples Shape Visualization Design Outcomes
Bako, H. K., Liu, X., Ko, G., Song, H., Battle, L., & Liu, Z. (2024) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2024.3456407 · Cited by 7
“Collectively, these works show that examples significantly affect creativity: some report examples as a source of inspiration [9, 28, 32, 55, 60], while others report constraining effects of examples [26,37,37,44,50,63,76].”
BackgroundHow Visualization Designers Perceive and Use Inspiration
Baigelenov, A., Shukla, P., & Parsons, P. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3714191 · Cited by 14
“While metrics like novelty, quantity, and diversity of design outputsare valuable in relation to creativity and fixation (e.g., as in [3, 37, 79]), the personal and subjective aspects of professional practice, including professional identity and design philosophy, will undoubtedly impact the actual…”
Insights from a Latent Semantic Analysis of Patterns in Design Expertise: Implications for Education
Casakin, H., & Singh, V. (2019) · Education Sciences · doi:10.3390/educsci9030208 · Cited by 7
“Thus, expertise in creativity is seen as the ability to organize information in a way that facilitates the intuitive identification of creative and unorthodox solutions, and the employment of heuristic procedures that serve to transform inert knowledge into active exploration [30,74].”
BackgroundBayırlı, Ü., & Börekçi, N. A. G. Z. (2022) · Thinking Skills and Creativity · doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2022.101036 · Cited by 7
To Copy or Not to Copy: The Influence of Instructions in Design Fixation Experiments
Vasconcelos, L. A., Chen, C., Taysom, E., & Crilly, N. (2017) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44989-0_20 · Cited by 7
“It is often measured in the solutions that the designers propose according to the repetition of features from the stimuli that the designers see [4-10].”
BackgroundInfrastructure supporting collaborative project based learning in engineering education
Vasileva, T. K., Tchoumatchenko, V., Lakkala, M., & Kosonen, K. (2011) · International journal of engineering education · Cited by 7
Metadata
- Authors
- Purcell, A. T., & Gero, J. S.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- ORCID
- Gero, John S.
- Venue
- Design Studies
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1996-10
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 363-383
- ISSN
- 0142-694X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1976933533
- Cited by
- 552
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 44 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 4.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Design Studies (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Creativity in Education and Neuroscience
- Social Sciences › Education › Engineering Education and Pedagogy
- Keywords
- design fixation, functional fixedness, design problem solving, design process, design education, human problem solving
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