4th ICDC 1 The Fourth International Conference on Design Creativity (4th ICDC) Atlanta, GA, November 2 nd -4 th , 2016 COLLABORATIVE FIXATION IN EARLY PROBLEM EXPLORATION AND IDEATION WORKSHOPS M. Laakso 1 , T. A. Björklund 1 and S. Kirjavainen 1 1 Aalto University Design Factory, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland Abstract: Most studies on design fixation have been conducted in experimental setups, with individuals ideating or sketching in response to relatively simple tasks. Fixation resulting from exposure to ideas and perceptions of others in a group situation has been less explored. This study investigated how an early exploration and ideation workshop in complex, interdisciplinary student design projects influenced both the problem representations and the solution ideas of team members. The results reveal that when a perspective dominated the initial representations of the team, it was further emphasized after the workshop. Teams having more equal initial distributions in perspectives remained more balanced. However, technological considerations tended to increase even then. The proportion of generic statements decreased with nearly all teams becoming more focused on the particulars of their project. The results suggest that the possibility of early commitment to initially dominant perspectives should be acknowledged and possibly mitigated for. Keywords: design fixation, problem representation, idea generation, interdisciplinary teams 1. Introduction The early phases of the design process hold a great potential to influence the resulting product and its development process. However, there is little knowledge regarding the design problem in these phases, as understanding only accumulates during the design process (Ullman, 2003). Due to this paradoxical situation, early attachment to a limited amount of possible avenues to explore or to specific solution ideas is likely to be highly detrimental – these decisions, whether implicit or explicit, are not likely to be grounded in sufficient knowledge. Design fixation, defined by Jansson and Smith (1991) as “a blind, sometimes counterproductive, adherence to a limited set of ideas in the design process”, is a well- established phenomenon linked to this type of premature commitment. Design fixation has been identified to apply to many areas of design practice, including engineering design, architecture, industrial design and software design, with various measures proposed for preventing and reducing it (Crilly, 2015; Moreno et al., 2015; Sio et al., 2015; Vasconcelos & Crilly, 2016). Various types of ideation or creative problem-solving meetings are typically held early on in the design process to assist design groups in exploring the solution space and ensuring an overview of potential