Design fixation: A new reading of cognitive constraint in the design process

Despite being a creative process by nature, the design process often presents designers with mental challenges that restrict their capacity to develop with original and useful concepts. Among these, design fixation is a prevalent occurrence. It limits the designer's mental space by making it harder to see other options or by repetitively using well-known solutions without question. This dual nature implies that design fixation is a multi-layered cognitive barrier rather than a straightforward mistake, showing up as either a dependence on previous designs (category trap) or an inability to consider alternate solutions (puzzle trap). Through a methodical and critical analysis of the literature, this paper aims to offer a conceptual and structural reconsideration of design fixation. The review process follows the PRISMA 2020 framework to ensure a structured and transparent synthesis of relevant studies. Three main questions are the subject of the study: In terms of design processes, what is design fixation? In what ways has it been classified in various studies? And what standards have been put forward for identifying and evaluating it? The paper also identifies and summarizes important methods for overcoming fixation, especially in the contexts of reflective design and education. The results show that two complementary approaches can be used to understand design fixation: (1) cognitive psychology-based terminology like functional fixedness, mental set, and path of least resistance; and (2) design process-related behavioral patterns like unconscious adherence, conscious block, and intentional resistance. Despite their analytical differences, these categories frequently overlap in practice and represent a larger interaction between bias, memory, and professional habit. The study offers two primary categories of criteria to evaluate fixation: indirect indicators (such as self-assessment tools, behavioral assessments, and outcomes from experimental design tasks) and direct measurements (such as frequency of repeated features, concept originality, and functional variety). These standards serve as the basis for assessing the efficacy of suggested remedies in addition to providing information on the existence and severity of fixation. Three strategic paths to minimize fixation are proposed based on a synthesis of previous studies, especially those that use semi-experimental and research-through-design approaches:

Internal strategies, which aim to strengthen designers’ cognitive flexibility through techniques like problem reframing, deliberate incubation, and reflective pauses;
External strategies, which reshape the design environment by introducing varied stimuli, representational diversity, analogical reasoning, and computational tools;
Hybrid strategies, which integrate internal and external components in multi-step design methods such as SCAMPER or TRIZ.

Offering a multi-layered characterization of design fixation that connects conceptual clarity with practical relevance is one of the study's main achievements. In addition to differentiating between direct and indirect assessment criteria, it synthesizes two complementary categorization methods and groups design responses into three strategic categories: internal, external, and hybrid. The development of instructional materials, diagnostic markers, and reflective design techniques is made possible by these discoveries, which also provide a conceptual foundation for seeing fixation as an organized process as opposed to an arbitrary barrier. This research adds to a more thorough and transportable knowledge of creative restrictions in the architectural design process by placing fixation at the nexus of cognitive habit, design culture, and educational framework.