Solution-generation design behavior in general, and "reflection-in-action" in particular, can serve to differentiate designers, recognizing their personal reflecting when designing. In psychology, reflection is found a more robust tool to enhance task performance after feedback from a personal "device" that generates the process itself while interacting with visual representation. Differences among students' interior design processes appear in their solution-generation design behavior. A “think aloud” experiment identified solution-generation behavior profiles. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies showed how design characteristics unite, forming patterns of design behavior. A comprehensive picture of designers’ differences emerged.
The research aimed:
to identify individual design students’ solution-generation profiles based on design characteristics.
to show how reflection-in-action appearing in the profiles can serve to predict how novice designers learn and act when solving a design problem.
to enhance the uniqueness of reflection-in-action for designers as distinct from reflection in other fields.
Four distinct solution-generation profiles emerged, each showing a different type of reflective acts. Identifying reflection-in-action type can robustly predict how designers develop design solutions and help develop pedagogical concepts, strategies and tools.