The relationship between personal intrinsic factors towards a design problem and the degree of novelty and circularity

Abstract

The aim of this work is to determine how personal intrinsic factors towards a design problem are related to novelty and circularity. A deeper understanding of this relationship will be a valuable aid when it comes to making an adequate selection of design teams. The factors studied are the level of the designer's motivation, relevance, knowledge and affinity with regard to the design problem. To this end, a study was conducted with 35 novice designers, organised in groups of between two and five members. Each group had to propose a conceptual solution to two different design problems. Novelty was assessed using the SAPPhIRE causality model (which stands for State–Action–Part–Phenomenon–Input–oRgan–Effect) and the Circular Economy Toolkit was applied to measure circularity. The results show that as motivation, level of knowledge, perception of relevance and affinity for the problem increase, the solution displays greater novelty and less circularity, although for circularity, the difference is not statistically significant.