We developed a set of teachable design ideation strategies to support diversity in concept generation. These strategies, called "Design Heuristics," are intended to facilitate the discovery of diverse concept ideas in the design of products. Design Heuristics were extracted from the work of students and professionals from engineering and industrial design. When applied to a new design problem, Design Heuristics serve as cognitive "shortcuts" for exploring the space of possible design solutions. In this study, we provided an educational session about Design Heuristics to 48 students in an introductory engineering course, and analyzed the design concepts they generated for a specific design task. The results showed that concepts guided by the Design Heuristics were more original than concepts that did not include their application. In a short intervention, some students were able to make use of the heuristics, and to generate original concepts. The findings demonstrate that Design Heuristics facilitate exploration of the design space beyond the "obvious" solutions.
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