What is Einstellung Effect in Design?

In design which never stops, practitioners are committed to accomplishing the most that their imagination can offer and creating more artworks. On the one hand, designers are always chasing after new solutions and ideas but inevitably they usually end up developing the same cognitive biases that block them from seeing these outside-the-box solutions. A different example is the Einstellung Effect, a cognitive bias that influences problem-solving the followers by creating a predisposition where they tend to stick to familiar routines in spite of local options being better.

Einstellung Effect is a cognitive bias, borrowing the name “attitude” or “set” from the German word, which illustrates the scenarios when the minds of the people are set in a way to approach the problems with a preexisting idea in the mind, which usually makes them ignores an uncommon approach in favor of the usual. Thus, this cognitive bias displays itself in various design disciplines including graphic design and product development to user experience and architectural design.

Einstellung Effect in Design

How to Prevent the Einstellung Effect?

1. Awareness and Recognition:

The first move to battle against the Einstellung Effect is to be aware of it. Team leaders should work on cultivating self-awareness and at the same time be on alert for any display of rigidity and repetition of thinking patterns. The process of recognizing the likelihood of cognitive biases sets the stage for active interventions that intend to eliminate bias.

2. Divergent Thinking Techniques:

Create an atmosphere that fosters divergent thinking to find out a broad spectrum of approaches that can solve problems. Through brainstorming sessions, mind mapping exercises, and concept mapping brainwash can emerge from presuppositions and can actually enquire alternative perspectives that help to solve problems.

3. Problem Reframing:

Doing design exercises thorough situations through varied perspectives help develop the mind. When exercising their different perspectives and thought processes, designers can discover novel ideas and innovative solutions they might not thought of previously.

4. Prototype Iteration:

Adopt the iterative design procedure that is characterized by the berth of experimentation and modulation. This rapid prototyping and user testing has a great potential to prompt designers to repeat the process as many times as possible, thus recognize solutions that were not explored earlier.

5. Cross-disciplinary Collaboration:

Collaborate with people who are from different backgrounds and disciplines throughout. Interdisciplinary teams from different disciplines are established which lends different angles of vision and experiences to this process unleashing their creativity and innovativeness. Through merging of everyone’s intelligence and code of conduct, they can break through of individual biases.

6. Encourage Unconventional Thinking:

Stimulate a mindset that evades orthodoxy and flourishes during taking risks. Inspire practitioners to step out of the box of what they know, to break the established norms, and push new, incredible ideas in the design process. Enthusing the atmosphere of innovation in which one can try out many options and get to original answers is one of the key elements to breakthrough of creditable inventions or discover creative solutions.

Examples

1. Apple’s Design Philosophy:

Apple is one of the first brands that come to mind whenever design is being spoken. They usually want to introduce the new to the world standards by reshaping our everyday life. One could, therefore, cite the entry of iPhone as a successful challenger whose customers experienced a revolution in the smartphone industry that preferred simplicity, user friendliness, and simplicity in terms of the aesthetics.

2. IDEO’s Human-Centered Design:

For instance, IDEO, a design firm with an international reputation, places human-centered design principles at the foundation of their decision-making process in order to overcome challenging issues. Through empathy, creativity, and experimentation, the employees at IDEO are encouraged to put aside the convention and come up with new approaches to complicated problems.

3. Tesla’s Electric Vehicles:

Tesla’s electric cars are a manifestation of fresh innovative thinking in design as they test the automotive design they always followed in a non-traditional way. With sustainability, performance as its main go, and leading technology as the submarine where Tesla has reached a standard for other manufacturers in electric mobility, the automotive industry has redefined its landscape.

Conclusion

The Einstellung Effect is a rather dangerous factor for designers that hinders them in the long run, by killing their creativity and in some cases, the innovation. On the other side, through different aspact to reduce this the cognitive trap, such as divergent thinking, problem re-framing, and cross-discipline collaboration, designers can beat the Einstellung Effect and earn new prospects for innovative design solutions. Designers should then focus on the creation of an innovative climate, the openness to fresh thoughts and the continuous learning to get away from the existing paradigms and introduce the substantive changes in the contemporary world design.

In the end, the Einstellung Effect plays the role of a caution that cognitiveists always need to be on the watch out of biased thinking. The endless stream of curiosity, the journey of exploration and the ability to adapt should always be cherished by designers. Thus, designers tap into their imagination unconfined and produce life-changing creations that respond in a multi-faceted way based on the complexity of the tasks and give us a great chance at enriching our lives.