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Function modelling is proposed in the literature from different disciplines, in interdisciplinary approaches, and used in practice with the intention of facilitating system conceptualisation. However, function models across disciplines are largely diverse addressing different function modelling perspectives and using different structures and forms for representing the contained information. This hampers the exchange of information between the models and poses particular challenges to joint modelling and shared comprehension between designers from different disciplines. This article proposes an integrated function modelling framework, which specifically aims at relating between the different function modelling perspectives prominently addressed in different disciplines. It uses interlinked matrices based on the concept of DSM and MDM in order to facilitate cross-disciplinary modelling and analysis of the functionality of a system. The article further presents the application of the framework based on a product example. Finally, an empirical study in industry is presented. Therein, feedback on the potential of the proposed framework to support interdisciplinary design practice as well as on areas of further improvement has been obtained from participants working in industry.

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Authors across disciplines propose functional modeling as part of systematic design approaches, in order to support and guide designers during conceptual design. The presented research aims at contributing to a better understanding of the diverse functional modeling approaches proposed across disciplines. The article presents a literature review of 41 modeling approaches from a variety of disciplines. The analysis focuses on what is addressed by functional modeling at which point in the proposed conceptual design process (i.e., in which sequence). The gained insights lead to the identification of specific needs and opportunities, which could support the development of an integrated functional modeling approach. The findings suggest that there is no such shared sequence for functional modeling across disciplines. However, a shared functional modeling perspective has been identified across all reviewed disciplines, which could serve as a common basis for the development of an integrated functional modeling approach.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to clarify the concept of affordances, as introduced by Maier and Fadel, to relate affordances to function, to try to reduce confusion about both of these terms by providing a detailed model, and to expose some of the existing research on function to a wider audience. The paper starts by constructing a model of function that relates devices to an environment. We then extend the model to include goals. Next we express the concept of affordances in terms of the model already constructed. The paper concludes by discussing the impact that use of affordances might have on the designer's pattern of reasoning.

Identifying relevant stimuli that help generate solutions of desired novelty and quality is challenging in analogical design. To quell this challenge, the multifaceted effects of using stimuli which are located at various analogical distances to the design problem on the novelty and quality of concepts generated using the stimuli are studied in this research. Data from a design project involving 105 student designers, individually generating 226 concepts of spherical rolling robots, are collected. From these data, 138 concepts generated with patents as stimuli and the patents used are analyzed. Analogical distance of a patent is measured in terms of knowledge similarity between technology classes constituting the patent and design problem domain of spherical rolling robots. The key observations are (a) technology classes in closer than farther distances from the design problem are used more frequently to generate concepts, (b) as analogical distance increases the novelty of concepts increases, and (c) as analogical distance decreases the quality of concepts increases.

Design fixation is a phenomenon with important significance to many fields of design due to the potential negative impacts it may have in design outcomes, especially during the ideation stage of the design process. The present study aims to provide a framework for understanding, or at least probing, design fixation by presenting a review of existing defixation approaches, as well as metrics that have been employed to understand and account for design fixation. This study also describes the results of two design by analogy (DbA) methods, WordTree and SCAMPER, to overcome design fixation in an experiment that involved 97 knowledge-domain experts. The study outcomes are at least twofold: a common framework of metrics and approaches to overcome design fixation in a wide range of design problems and nonintuitive results for DbA approaches in design fixation and other related creativity metrics. The application of WordTree and SCAMPER shows that both methods yield increased novelty compared to a control, where the SCAMPER results are significantly higher than WordTree. It is also found that WordTree mitigates design fixation whereas SCAMPER appears to be ineffective for this purpose but effective to generate an increased quantity of novel ideas. These results demonstrate that both DbA methods provide de-fixation capabilities and enhance designers’ creativity during idea generation.