Base on the above results and analysis, the author proposed the some phenomena of analogical thinking and brings some different view about the role of analogy in design field. In the chapter, the author makes a conclusion about this research and then discusses limitations and future works of this research.
5.1 Conclusion
In this research, the author focuses on understanding analogical thinking in design field and proposes some new opinions about analogy. Analogy is a common thinking process for designers and stimulates designers’ innovation, but few scholars discuss the analogical thinking process in design domain. This research investigates this issue, tries to know more the design process of designers, and proposes some view of points of analogical thinking process. Two main purposes that the author tries to investigate deeply are the analogical thinking process and variation of analogical thinking with different media.
From the result of the analysis of visual and verbal data from experiments, the author derives three cognitive phenomena of designers while he/she generate concepts with computer or conventional media. The three phenomena shows that the analogical thinking in design domain has some special characteristics that analogy in other fields, such as linguistics, semantics, literary or mathematics, do not possess. The first phenomenon is that designers search some key words or meaningful pictures that contain spatial metaphor to be their analogical sources. Secondly, the analogical ideas occur concentrated in the latter part of the process in conventional media. On the contrary, the appearances of analogical ideas scatter in different move in computer media. Finally, different kinds of media possess different characteristics that lead the analogical thinking and design results to become diverse.
Conventional media assembles the analogical ideas; the computer media broadens the possibilities of analogical thinking.
Analogical thinking processes in different media have many points in common. The main common point is that the designer’s thinking and analogical decisions. Even though designers design with different tools, the analogical ideas which they choose and transfer are the same.
According to this phenomenon one, it found that the most analogical transfers aim at visual and spatial analogy. Designers pay particular attention to the words or images which have spatial metaphor. Most of designers in the experiment capture the same images or key words,
but how they apply the source to their target and how deep their analogical transfers would be are decided by designers’ creativity and ability. Therefore, the design tools may affect the design process and the result of analogy, but it could not decide the main thinking of designers’ mind.
The different points of analogical thinking process are the results of design and some differences of whole process due to the disparities of design medium. The phenomenon two and the phenomenon three show how media influence the analogical thinking process. On the one hand, freehand sketching helps designers to draw many sketches and clear their thinking;
therefore, the designer can generate more concepts when he/she uses conventional media. On the other hand, the experimental results prove that generating analogical ideas does not only happen in sketches. Previous research proposed some limitations of computer; however, from this research, the author not only makes people know more about analogical thinking with computer but also proves how the computer breaks the traditional view that offer analogical thinking other possibilities. For the immediate visualized feedback of computer, the designer can easily been influenced to have some imaging in his/her mind. Abundant functions of computer applications aid designers in stimulate their design creativities. It needs to concern the impact of computer on areas of drafting, visualization, three-dimensional (3D) modeling and performance analysis, all of which are seen as important elements affecting analogical results.
Finally, the contribution of the research is a preliminary understanding of analogical thinking in design field. According to the results of analysis, analogical thinking is an interaction between designers, analogical sources, design target, and design media. Designers play the most important role in analogical thinking process because they can choose and transfer the idea which they are interested in. The analogical depth also depends on the designer's imagination and creativity. The design media play a supporting role in analogical thinking process. It means that the characteristics of design media not only affect design process and design result but also offer the variability of analogical thinking design.
5.2 Limitations
There are some limitations on this research. Firstly, this research is a discussion about the relationship between analogical thinking and design media. Because there is still no theory describing how analogical thinking works in this field, the author use the common research method “protocol analysis” and apply some analogical theories from other fields. The
segmentation of coding scheme could help abridge the huge data, but it also leads to some details are neglected.
Secondly, another limitation is each of the subjects are good at different design tools, it is possible that the subjects’ responses are affected by the tools that they use. Every design application has different characteristics and diverse functions. For example, the application 3Ds Max provides designers plenty of parameters or commands. The application Sketch Up offers designer a simple computer design environment to manipulate, but it does not possess various functions. The author rarely discusses this issue because the main purpose of this research is to investigate the analogical thinking from the perspective of design media but not a comparison between different computer media. Thus, this issue should be further examined.
Thirdly, the analogical sources are limited on organic analogy because the author tries to understanding the analogical thinking process. The diversity of organism could offer designers have more sources ideas to choose in a limiting condition. Moreover, paying attention to various sources would lead to distract from our main problem. However, the only organic analogical source is not comprehensive enough. After preliminary understanding of analogical thinking, the further study will focus on various types of analogical sources.
Finally, owing to few numbers of subjects in this experiment, the results in this paper should be regarded as a consequence in a case study. The author picks three subjects from eight subjects that are few numbers, but for the preliminary study, it is already sufficient. More designers will be invited in the further study.
5.3 Future studies
The research discusses some phenomena of analogical thinking in design field. It is a pilot study of this issue. Our further study will focus on broad approach of analogical thinking, such as variability of analogical sources. There is a need for further ‘applied research’ into this area where proper research methods and techniques should be employed on a bigger sample using different media. More architectural designers will join the research and more kinds of media will be investigated. It is hoped that this research has to some extent established a ‘framework’ of analogical thinking process in design field. Also, experimental research is needed in architectural offices, where the context is different and the subjects are experienced architects whose design knowledge/experience is greater than that of only
‘novice’ students.