AnalogiLead: Improving Selection of Analogical Inspirations with Chunking and Recombination

Analogical reasoning, a process that integrates potential leads across domains and disciplines, has been proven to contribute to breakthrough innovations. Selecting the right analogical leads is crucial, as it determines the quality and effectiveness of the generated ideas. However, identifying relevant analogical leads can be challenging and may be missed due to premature rejection or design fixation. To address this problem, our system, "AnalogiLead", draws on the cognitive mechanisms of chunking and recombination as a medium of interaction for selecting beneficial analogies. Users interact with meaningful chunks or segments from a design problem and analogy, represented as interactive tiles called "magnets", and evaluate the analogies by recombining the "magnets" into brainstorming questions. These mechanisms are designed to foster playful and divergent exploration of analogical leads (vs. restrictive, relevance-based screening), to reduce premature rejection of analogical leads and foster more analogical innovations.