Using monochromatic design views to avoid a premature fixation on design solutions.
OBJECTIVE
This study investigates whether the availability of a monochromatic design view can prevent an early fixation on details during the preliminary stages of a design task.


BACKGROUND
Design students are trained to tentatively sketch the overall form of a design concept before attending to its details. Literature suggests that using multiple colors for sketching a concept causes a gestalt-like grouping phenomenon and influences designers to adopt a contrasting strategy of adding details before sketching the overall form. An empirical study was conducted to assess the validity of these findings.


METHODS
In the study, 20 participants, randomly assigned to two groups, were allowed to use multiple colors to sketch a design concept within a digital sketching environment. However, only the single-color group had the ability to view a sketch, as it would appear in monochrome.


RESULTS
Both groups parsed the design concepts into their basic components and used colors as a means of distinguishing one component from another. However, the single-color group added significantly more details than the first or the multicolor group after sketching the overall form.


CONCLUSIONS
Verbal reports suggest that the single-color group was able to avoid an early fixation on details because the single-color view eliminated the discontinuities induced by the variation in color and allowed the participants to attend to the overall form instead of the individual components.


CONCLUSIONS
The current findings highlight the importance of providing a monochrome design view within a sketching environment to avoid an early fixation on a specific design solution.
Damle
Amod
A
Department of Computing and New Media Technologies, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, B 237 Science Building, 2001 4th Avenue, Stevens Point, WI 54481, USA. adamle@uwsp.edu
D000328:Adult; D003116:Color; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007374:Interior Design and Furnishings; D008875:Middle Aged; D010466:Perceptual Closure; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult