Category, process, and recommendation of design in an interactive evolutionary computation interior design experiment: a data-driven study

Design is a complicated and sophisticated process with numerous existing theories trying to describe it. To verify theories and quantitatively describe the design process, design experiment, and data analysis are crucial and inevitable. However, applying data analysis in the design experiment is tricky and design data is not fully utilized in many aspects. To explore the potential of design experiment data, this paper introduces data-driven research based on an interior design experiment, aiming to reveal the category and process of design by conducting data analysis, visualization, and recommendation. We introduce an interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) design experiment that deals with a simplified interior design task and has already been tested on 230 subjects. Using the data gathered during the experiment, we conduct data analysis and visualization involving methods including Holistic color interval and K-means clustering to show categories and processes in design. Additionally, we train a content-based recommendation system with experiment data to capture user preference and make the IEC system more efficient and intelligent. The analysis and visualization show clear design categories and capture an evident trend towards the final design outcome. The application of the recommendation system brings a prominent improvement to the IEC system. This research shows the great potential of the various data-driven methods in design research.