January 2023
Intermediate to advanced
248 pages
3h 45m
English
Two groups of engineering students were given a similar task – to design a bicycle rack for a car. The first group was shown an existing but poorly designed roof rack for bicycles. They looked at all the issues with the current design and then set out to come up with something better. The second group was not shown the ineffective roof rack; they were simply told to design a really good bicycle rack. The second group came up with much more elegant and effective designs. The first group focused on the problems with the existing design and that constrained their thinking.
The study was carried out by researchers David Jansson and Steven Smith and is mentioned in David Niven’s book It’s Not About the ...
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