Accepted Manuscript Not Copyedited

Journal of Mechanical Design.
Received June 30, 2018;

Accepted manuscript posted December 21, 2018. doi:10.1115/1.4042339
Copyright (c) 2018 by ASME
When Are Designers Willing To Take Risks?
How Concept Creativity and Prototype
Fidelity Influence Perceived Risk
(DETC2018-86092)
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Elizabeth M. Starkey
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School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs
The Pennsylvania State University
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213 Hammond Building
University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802
ems413@psu.edu
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ASME Member
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Jessica Menold
School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs
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jdm5407@psu.edu
ASME Member
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Scarlett R. Miller
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School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs and the Department of
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
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shm13@psu.edu
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ABSTRACT
Building prototypes is an important part of the concept selection phase of the design process, where fuzzy ideas
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get represented to support communication and decision making. However, previous studies have shown that
prototypes generate different levels of user feedback based on their fidelity and aesthetics. Furthermore, prior
research on concept selection has shown that individual risk attitude effects how individuals select ideas, as creative
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ideas are perceived to be riskier in comparison to less creative ideas. While the role of risk has been investigated in
concept selection, there is lack of research on how risk is related to the selection of prototypes at various levels of
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fidelity. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of prototype fidelity, concept creativity, and risk
aversion, on perceived riskiness and concept selection through a between-subjects study with 72 engineering
students. The results revealed that there was a “goldilocks” effect in which students choose concepts with “just the
right amount” of novelty, not too much and not too little, as long as quality was adequate. In addition, the prototype
fidelity of a concept had an interaction with uniqueness, indicating that unique concepts are more likely to be
perceived as less risky if presented at higher levels of fidelity.
Keywords: Decision Theory, Conceptual Design, Design Process, Design Theory and Methodology
!1 Copyright © 2018 by ASME
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Journal of Mechanical Design. Received June 30, 2018;
INTRODUCTION
Large companies spend billions of dollars every year on research and development (R&D)
[1], in order to develop innovative products that are necessary to survive and thrive in a fast-
growing marketplace that demands product innovation. However, 40 to 50% of R&D
investments are lost each year due to projects that are canceled or fail in the market [2]. In order
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to reduce the risk of product failure, companies often rely on prototyping strategies to identify
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which concepts to move forward with or to “kill” [3]. This is because prototyping has been
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shown to be an effective means of representing and communicating early phase concepts [4-7],
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gathering user feedback [8, 9], identifying problems [10], aiding in decision making [10, 11], and
improving design outcomes and functionality [12]. However, prototyping also accounts for the
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largest sunk cost during product development [1, 2]. Thus, there is a need to investigate how the
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type of prototype developed impacts design decision making in order to develop cost-effective
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prototyping strategies that promote the flow of creative ideas.

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While the use of prototypes is widespread in the design industry, prototypes can differ
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significantly in their purpose and in their fidelity. In this work, we adopt the broadest definition
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of a prototype as “an early embodiment of a design concept” that is not a production stage design
[3, p. 650] meaning a prototype can range from low to high fidelity. For example, a low-fidelity
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prototype could represent an idea with limited function or capabilities of interaction [6][13] such
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as through a sketch or a storyboard [14]. These prototypes which are often the least expensive to
produce [15] provide the designers with immediate feedback [16] and are typically used to gage
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the usability [17] and desirability [18] of a design. On the other hand, medium fidelity prototypes
are used to illustrate the look and feel of a final design without the interactivity [19], and/or
understand the intuitiveness, usability, or basic functionality of a design [19-21]. Finally, high

fidelity prototypes which can be characterized as pre-production models [22] that serve as a
physical or digital instantiation of the finalized concept. High fidelity prototypes often offer a
fully interactive or functional representation of the entire system [22, 23], but this comes with a
high cost. While research has begun to explore the appropriateness of different prototype
fidelities for various design tasks, such as gathering user feedback [8, 10, 12, 13, 20, 24, 25],
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there is little research on how prototype fidelity impacts go/ no-go decisions.
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In addition to our lack of understanding on prototype fidelity and design decision making, we
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also do not understand how one’s willingness to take risks relates to prototype fidelity and
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concept creativity. Understanding the factors that impact this decision making process is critical
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as creative ideas are often associated with uncertainty and risk [26, 27]. A creative idea is
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typically considered one that is both novel and useful [28, 29]. In fact, this multifaceted
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relationship has been found to have an inverse effect, where novel ideas are discarded during the
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concept selection process, and more conventional alternatives are chosen to move forward with
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[30]. Previous work investigated the evolution of ideas throughout the design process in an 8
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week design project with engineering students and found that while students ended their design
projects with a high quality idea, the novelty of the ideas they generated at the beginning of the
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project did not impact the novelty of their final design [30] . This indicates that novel ideas are
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not making it through the design process and that student designers are making decisions that
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favor more feasible, non-unique concepts. These results are in agreement with other work that
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found that individuals are prone to select traditional, less creative ideas over innovative, more
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unique ideas during concept selection [28, 29]. This phenomenon can reduce the likelihood of
innovative products making it to market.
The current study was developed to investigate the role of individual risk preferences,

prototype fidelity, and creativity of ideas, on final concept choice. The results from an online
survey of 72 engineering students expand our understanding of the influence of prototype fidelity
on concept selection and perceived risk in an educational setting.
RELATED WORK
In order to provide a theoretical background for the proposed work, prior research was
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examined. The current section highlights these findings and lays the framework for the study
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design and the results.
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Prototype Fidelity in Engineering Design Process
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Research points to the benefits of prototyping such as improved technical quality [7] and
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improved manufacturability [18] of final designs. Design teams have long struggled, however, to
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balance the fidelity of prototypes with budget and time constraints [20, 25]. With the large
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investment and risk of inadequate returns that prototyping presents [25], it is critical to
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understand what level of prototype fidelity is appropriate dependent upon design needs and
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context.
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The prototype fidelity literature has focused extensively on which level of prototype (i.e.
low-, medium- or high-fidelity prototype) yields higher quality user feedback [7, 10, 13, 21, 24,
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31]. Specifically, low fidelity prototypes have been found to generate the equivalent amount of
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user feedback as high-fidelity prototypes [10, 31, 32] while leading to more efficient processes
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and outcomes [7]. In addition, Walker, Takayama, and Landay [13] found that low-fidelity
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(sketched) and high-fidelity (HTML website) prototypes were equally effective in detecting
usability issues. While some have praised low fidelity prototypes for their ability to quickly
validate designs at a low cost [20, 26], other studies have suggested the effectiveness of low

fidelity prototypes depend on the purpose of its use. For example, in cases where interactivity is
essential to a concept, low-fidelity prototypes are insufficient for usability testing [8].
In addition to prototype fidelity, the aesthetics of a design and the interaction with fidelity
may play a crucial role in influencing user feedback [24, 27]. Sauer and Sonderegger [24]
investigated the interaction between prototype fidelity (paper, computer, fully operating
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prototype) and levels of aesthetics (high vs. moderate) on user behavior, subjective evaluation,
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and emotion in usability tests, finding that participants overrated the aesthetic qualities of low-
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fidelity prototypes. In addition, they found that the fidelity level of prototypes did not affect
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emotions or subjective user evaluation. Similarly, Macomber and Yang [27] investigated the
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influence of sketch finish and style in user responses to early design concepts, finding that users
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responded most positively to clean hand sketches rather than rough sketches or CAD drawings.
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This prior work indicate that variations in prototype fidelity can produce widely varying user
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feedback and recommendations.

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While this prior work highlights the impact of prototype fidelity on design outcomes and
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interactions with end users, little work to date has explored its effect on risk perceptions or
concept selection. We highlight this as a critical gap in the literature as failure to identify the
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effect prototype fidelity has on perceived riskiness of concepts, during engineering design can
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lead to innovative or useful concepts being overlooked. Thus, this study aims to fill this
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knowledge gap by exploring the role of prototype fidelity during concept selection.
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Risk Taking in Concept Selection
While there is limited research investigating risk taking and prototyping, there has been
significant work investigating risk during concept selection. In fact, scholars have identified that

creative ideas are often associated with uncertainty and risk, which certain people have tendency
to avoid [28, 29]. Specifically, research has shown that men are more willing to take risks than
women [33] and that more narcissistic individuals are more likely to take risks [34]. In an
engineering context risk is defined as the “effect of uncertainty on objectives” [35]. When this is
applied to a creative design task, we can say that risk is uncertainties about whether potential
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outcomes will be realized given creative effort [36, 37]. The willingness of an individual to take
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risks has been found to impact creative output in an R&D setting, with those who are more
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willing to take risks producing higher creative output [38]. In a study investigating choice with
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architects, it was found that those who are more risk prone are willing to push through weaker
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code-compliant design [39]. These studies indicate that individuals may be more willing to move
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forward with ideas that are risky if they have a more risk prone attitude. While the role of risk
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has been investigated in concept selection, limited prior research has investigated how risk is
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driving selection of concepts and how the creativity of concepts impacts how risky they are
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perceived to be.
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While not studied in the context of prototyping, recent research has emerged to assess risk in
engineering domain specific tasks and to investigate the relationship between risk and creativity
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during concept selection in engineering design. Specifically, to explore risk taking in an

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engineering contest the Engineering Domain Specific Risk Taking (E-DOSPERT) scale was
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developed by Van Bossuyt et al. [40] and found that risk taking attitudes are domain specific and
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can be trained. Barclift et al. [41] used this scale to investigate risk taking in an additive
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manufacturing design task and found that the risk aversion sub-scale could predict the novelty of
ideas but not the quality of the ideas. While these studies show promise for the E-DOSPERT
scale, this scale has not been utilized in studies investigating the concept selection stage of the

design process and focuses on engineering process, product functionality, legal issues and ethics.
Because the “fuzzy" front end [42] of the design process is characterized by uncertainty and
unknown unknowns, the risks associated with the early stages of design are fundamentally
different than the risks associated with the later stages of design, when more design information
is known [43]. Since no scale existed to assess risk in concept selection during the engineering
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design process, Toh and Miller adopted a financial risk-taking measure and found study, found
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that individual financial risk aversion was related to creative concept selection [44]. Risk
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aversion was measured using survey questions from behavioral economics where participants
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were asked to answer 10 random questions on individual preference for a “fixed payoff of a
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specified value, or a gamble for fair odds with an uncertain payoff of a specified value” [44, p.
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215]. Follow up work by Toh and Miller may remedy this problem through the development of
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the Preferences for Creativity Scale (PCS), which assesses an individual’s preference for
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creativity in engineering design on four dimensions, including risk tolerance, but since this scale
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captures conscious risk attitudes, it may not capture one’s actual risk taking preference [45, 46].
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While the PCS results are promising, the scale has not been fully validated. At any case, these
studies indicate that risk taking impacts creative concept selection. However, these studies are
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limited to investigating early phase design sketches and not the evolution of an idea over the
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course of a design project.

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While previous work has investigated the role of financial risk in concept selection, no study
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to date has looked at how financial risk is related to the selection of prototypes at various
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fidelities. Prototyping represents the largest sunk cost of the product development process, and
thus could represent the largest financial risk a company may take during product development.
Understanding how perceived risk is associated with the selection of prototypes at different

fidelity levels is critical in understanding which concepts are more likely to gain stakeholder buy
in and progress further in the product development process. This knowledge gap sets the stage
for our investigation of the relationship between prototype fidelity, risk perceptions, and
creativity.
Research Objectives
The purpose of the current study was to investigate the role that risk, concept creativity, and
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prototype fidelity have on how an individual chooses which prototypes to move forward with.
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Specifically, we sought to explore the following research questions:
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RQ1: Is there a relation between likelihood to move forward with a concept, perceived risk of the
concept and individual financial risk aversion scores?
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We hypothesized that individual financial risk aversion levels will impact how
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students select ideas, since Toh and Miller [44] found that financial risk is a factor
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impacting creative concept selection when working with sketches.

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RQ2: Is there a relation between likelihood to move forward with a concept and the creativity
(usefulness or uniqueness) of the concept?

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We hypothesized that the creativity of concepts in later stages of design would
impact the selection of ideas. Specifically, we hypothesized that the expert rated
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uniqueness of the design, represented as a prototype, would negatively influence concept
selection while expert rated usefulness would positively influence concept selection.

Copyright (c) 2018
RQ3:by Is
ASME
there a relation between perceived risk of a concept, prototype fidelity, and the creativity
(usefulness or uniqueness) of the idea?
We hypothesized that the fidelity of the prototype would impact students willing to
select creative ideas, since ideas that are more complete may have less risk associated
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with them. This is based on previous studies that have found that prototype fidelity
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impacts selection [7]. We also hypothesized that prototype fidelity would impact the
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perceived risk of the design concepts because previous work has highlighted the impact
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of prototype fidelity on stakeholder buy in and trust [47].
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METHODOLOGY
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To answer these research questions, a survey was conducted with 72 students. This section
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serves to summarize the methodological approaches of the study.
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Participants
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Participants were recruited from a first-year undergraduate engineering design course at a
large northeastern university. In all, 72 students (52 males and 21 females) participated in the
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survey.
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Procedure
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At the start of the survey, a brief overview was provided and, per Institutional Review Board
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requirements, informed consent was obtained. Participants were then asked to complete a survey
consisting of two parts on a computer, all participants used the same PC throughout the entirety
of the study. Participants were first asked to complete a financial risk aversion portion of the
survey, where they were asked 10 lottery questions to capture their financial risk based on

recommendations and validation with first-year students by Toh and Miller (See [44] for full list
of questions). The lottery questions took following form: “which would you prefer? A) $15 for
sure. B) a coin flip in which you get $X if it is heads and $0 if it is tails.” These questions were
presented to the students in random order with X ranging from $20 to $250 similarly to Toh and
Miller [44]. Next, the participants were given the following task prompt:
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“You are an engineer on a project team that is trying to redesign a milk frother.
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Frothed milk is the warm, pourable, virtually liquid foam that tastes rich and sweet. It is
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an ingredient in many coffee beverages, especially espresso-based coffee drinks (Lattes,
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Cappuccinos, Mochas). Frothed milk is made by incorporating very small air bubbles
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throughout the entire body of milk through some form of vigorous motion. As such,
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devices that froth milk can also be used in a number of other applications, such as for
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whipping cream, blending drinks, emulsifying salad dressing, and many others. In
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addition to the requirement of vigorous motion, frothed milk should be between 150° and
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160° because above 160° the proteins in the milk start to breakdown causing sugars to
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be released which ultimately changes the flavor of the milk. Currently your company has
the following product on the market:

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Copyright (c) 2018 by ASMEThis product is battery operated and froths milk through a stirring motion. No
heating ability is incorporated into this device therefore the milk must be preheated in
order for this device to froth milk.
Your team has been tasked with designing a new milk frother that should be able to
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be used by the consumer with minimal instruction. You have been tasked with
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determining which following 9 ideas should be brought to the board of directors for
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consideration to move forward with in the design process. “
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Participants were then randomly assigned to a fidelity condition (sketch = 23 participants,
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cardboard = 25, and CAD prototype = 24) and given images of 9 different prototypes with the
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assigned fidelity. Before completing the survey, participants were asked to review all of the 9 of
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the prototypes. Images in each fidelity set appeared randomly to remove the effect of order on
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concept choice. Images appeared twice in the survey, all 9 prototypes were displayed at the
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beginning of the survey in a group and then again each image was shown, larger and individually
and questions about each prototype followed directly below the image. See Appendix A for a
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screen shot of the survey page. Students were then prompted to rate their feelings about the
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prototypes on a scale of 1-6 for multiple questions. A 6 point scale was used in order to avoid
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central tendency bias [48] and has been found to be reliable with participants with cognitive
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abilities of college level students [49]. Once they had reviewed these images they were prompted
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as follows:
“On a scale of 1-6 with 6 being extremely likely and 1 being not likely at all, how
likely are you to present each of the ideas to the board of directors?”
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! Copyright © 2018 by ASME

TABLE 1: ALL IDEAS AT ALL LEVELS OF QUALITY AND NOVELTY FOR LOW, MEDIUM,
AND HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPES
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Prototypes were acquired from a sample of 932 ideas collected for a previous study by
Starkey, Hunter, and Miller [50]. Prototypes were chosen from the sample of ideas in order to
represent every combination of low, medium, and high uniqueness and usefulness using
Amabile’s Consensual Assessment Technique [51]. Using this technique ideas were rated by two
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expert raters, who were chosen for their experience in design and assessment (4+ years) and for
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their extensive knowledge of milk frother designs, as well as creativity ratings, on a scale of 1-6
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for both uniqueness and usefulness. Prototypes were considered to have low uniqueness or
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usefulness if they were rated as a 1 or 2 in the category, medium if they were rated as a 3 or 4,
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and high if they were rated as a 5 or 6 in the category. In all, 9 different ideas were chosen to
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represent each combination of level (low, medium, high) and category (uniqueness, usefulness).
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The ideas chosen are shown in Table 1. For a detailed look at the textual descriptions for each
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prototype see the example survey shown in Appendix A.

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Each of the ideas chosen for the study were taken from the gathered data and were recreated
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by the researchers, at each level (sketch, cardboard, and CAD) to ensure that participant
perceptions were not being determined based on the quality of the prototype. All annotations
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were uniform across the fidelity levels.

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After rating the ideas for how likely they would be to present them to the board of directors,
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participants were prompted with the following question, “On a scale of 1-6 with 6 being
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extremely risky and 1 being not risky at all, how risky do you think each of the ideas presented by
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your team are?” in order to gather student’s perceptions [52] of the risk of failure for the project.
As a reminder, in engineering, risk can be defined as “effect of uncertainty on objectives” [35].
As previously described, participants were prompted to “determine which of the following 9

Copyright (c) 2018 byshould
ideas ASME be brought to the board of directors for consideration to move forward with in the
design process” and were then asked to rate the perceived riskiness of each of the ideas on a
scale from 1 to 6. The prompt implies that performance will be measured by the success of the
product in the market and by the acceptance, or lack of acceptance, of the proposed idea(s) by
the “board of directors
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Next, participants were presented with the prompt, “A unique idea can be defined as one that
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is rare, unusual, or uncommon. On a scale of 1-6 with 6 being extremely unique and 1 being not
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unique at all, how unique do you think each of the ideas presented by your team are?” This
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question was intended to gather the perceived uniqueness of the ideas. Lastly, participants were
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prompted with the following question, “A useful idea can be defined as one that applies to the
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problem at hand, is an effective solution, and is implementable. On a scale of 1-6 with 6 being
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extremely useful and 1 being not useful at all, how useful do you think each of the ideas
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presented by your team are?” This was provided in order to gather the perceived usefulness of
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the ideas. For each question in the survey, participants were shown the ideas as they rated them,
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as shown in Appendix A.
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Metrics
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The following metrics were utilized in this study to calculate the design creativity and the
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financial risk aversion.

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Design Creativity: The ideas developed by the participants were evaluated for usefulness
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and uniqueness by two expert raters using Amabile’s [51] Consensual Assessment Technique
using the guidelines put forth by [53] and [54]. Specifically, uniquness scores were founded on
perceptions of originality and surprise and usefulness scores were founded on perceptions of

value, logic, utility, and understandable of the idea. Raters provided a rating from 1 (low
uniquness or usefulness) to 6 (high uniquness or usefulness). The two expert raters assessed the
ideas independently and the scores from the raters were agregated. To qualify expertise, both
experts has at least 4 years of applied experience in design and assessment and had published at
least four papers in in design and creativity assessment. There was high level of agreement
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among the expert raters for usefulness (α = 0.85) and uniqueness (α = 0.85).
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Financial Risk Aversion: Individual financial risk aversion was determined through a
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survey (completed online) containing 10 lottery questions (See [44] for full list of questions).
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The financial risk aversion index for each individual was calculated according to Han et al. [55]
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using recommended payoff values validated by Toh and Miller [44]. The financial risk scores
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were normalized to range from 0 (risk prone) to 1 (risk averse). tN
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
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SPSS v. 25 was used to calculate the results and p = 0.05 was used in all analyses. While p-
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values are important to consider in statistical analysis, we must also consider the effect size of
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the significant relationships in order to understand the magnitude of the relationship. Therefore,
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the results also include analysis of the effect size reported as β and η 2 . The results of our
statistical analysis are presented below as mean and standard error unless otherwise stated.
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RQ1: Is There a Relation Between Likelihood To Move Forward With a Concept,

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Perceived Risk of the Concept and Individual Financial Risk Aversion Scores?
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As an initial analysis, we sought to understand how much or how little individual financial
risk aversion scores impacted risk perception and concept choice. While not studied in the
context of prototyping, a recent study [44], found that individual financial risk aversion was

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FIGURE 1: LIKELIHOOD TO MOVE FORWARD SCORES BY LOW, MEDIUM, AND HIGH LEVELS
OF USEFULNESS AND UNIQUENESS.
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related to creative concept selection. Thus, we hypothesized that financial risk aversion would
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moderate the relationship between perceived riskiness of a concept and likelihood to move
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forward with a concept. Results from a regression model revealed that individual’s financial risk
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aversion did not significantly predict perceived riskiness of a concept f(1,646) = 0.369, p =
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0.544, β = -0.024, or an individual’s likelihood to move forward with a concept f(1,646) = 0.000,
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p = 0.992, β < 0.001. These results led us to investigate other factors that may be impacting
perceived risk and likelihood to move forward with a concept. Specifically, the remaining
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research questions were focused on exploring the relationships between likelihood to move
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forward with a concept, perceived riskiness, creativity of the concept, and fidelity of the
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prototype.
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RQ2: Is There a Relation Between Likelihood To Move Forward With a Concept,

Prototype Fidelity, and the Creativity (Usefulness or Uniqueness) of the Concept?

Copyright (c) 2018 by
OurASME
second research question was developed to investigate if the likelihood to move forward
with an idea was based on the fidelity of the prototype and if this relationship was affected by the
creativity of the idea, where creativity is defined as a combination of usefulness and uniqueness.
Prior to conducting this analysis, a pre-analysis was conducted in order to understand how
student perceptions of uniqueness and usefulness lined up with expert ratings. The results of this
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pre-analysis revealed a significant correlation between student perceptions and expert ratings for
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both uniqueness and usefulness, and therefore expert ratings were used to avoid multicollinearity
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of variables. A three-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted with likelihood to move
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forward with the idea as the dependent variable, uniqueness, usefulness, and prototype fidelity as
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the independent variables of interest. Interactions that were not significant were subtracted from
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the model in order to arrive at the most accurate model. tN
The results revealed a statistically significant main effect for expert usefulness, f(2,633) =
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59.558, p < 0.0005, η 2 = 0.158. In addition, post-hoc analysis revealed that students were
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significantly more likely to move forward with ideas that were high in usefulness (3.90 ± 0.099),
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than those that were rated as medium usefulness (2.95 ± 0.109, p = 0.001) or low (2.44 ±
0.095, p < 0.0005). The results also showed that students were significantly more likely to move
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forward with ideas that were rated as medium usefulness than those that had low usefulness
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scores (p < 0.0005). There was also a statistically significant main effect for expert uniqueness,
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f(2,633) = 14.204, p < 0.0005, η 2 = 0.043. Post-hoc analysis revealed that students were
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significantly more likely to move forward with ideas that had medium uniqueness scores (3.50 ±
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0.116) than those that had a low (3.01 ± 0.105, p = 0.001) and high (2.78 ± 0.100, p < 0.0005)
uniqueness scores. Finally, the results revealed a statistically significant two-way interaction
between expert uniqueness and expert usefulness, f(2,633) = 7.791, p < 0.0005, η 2 = 0.047,

shown in Figure 1. Post-hoc analysis was conducted, revealing that for ideas with medium
usefulness, students were significantly more likely to move forward with ideas that had medium
uniqueness (3.90 ± .0.189) as compared to those with high uniqueness (2.51 ± 0.167, p < 0.0005)
and low uniqueness (2.44 ± 0.161, p < 0.0005). Participants were also significantly more likely
to move forward with ideas with medium uniqueness (4.22 ± 0.173) as compared to those with
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high uniqueness (3.60 ± 0.169, p = 0.027). This is an interesting finding as it is indicative of a
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“Goldilocks” effect, in which students are choosing concepts with “just the right amount” of
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novelty. Not too much and not too little.
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These results do not support our hypothesis that prototype fidelity would impact the
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likelihood to move forward with a concept. While previous work has shown that higher fidelity
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prototypes are more likely to garner support and buy-in from external stakeholders [40], our
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results indicate that prototype fidelity does not a play a significant role in the decision-making
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behaviors of internal design team members.

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RQ3: Is There a Relation Between Perceived Risk of a Concept, Prototype Fidelity, and the
Creativity (Usefulness or Uniqueness) of the Idea?
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Intuitively, perceived risk directly impacts likelihood to move forward with a concept and
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previous work has found that prototype fidelity affects stakeholder buy in and trust. As a first
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step towards uncovering the relationship between prototype fidelity and willingness to move
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forward with a concept, the relationship between perceived risk and prototype fidelity was
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explored. A Spearman correlation was calculated between perceived risk and likelihood to move
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forward, and perceived risk was significantly and negatively correlated with likelihood to move
forward with a concept, with a coefficient of -0.397, p < 0.0005. This highlights the negative

Copyright (c) 2018 by ASME between the perceived riskiness of
relationship a concept and the likelihood the concept is
chosen for further development.
Our third research question was focused on unpacking the relationship between perceived
risk, prototype fidelity, and creativity of the idea. In order to answer this research question, a
three-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted with perceived risk of the idea as the
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dependent variable, expert ratings of uniqueness, expert ratings of usefulness, and prototype
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fidelity as the independent variables. Interactions that were not significant were subtracted from
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the model in order to arrive at the most accurate model. Results revealed a statistically significant
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main effect for expert usefulness, f(2,633) = 11.535, p < 0.0005, η 2 = 0.035. Post-hoc analysis
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revealed that ideas rated high in usefulness (2.96 ± 0.092), were perceived to be significantly less
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risky than those that had a medium (3.48 ± 0.099, p = 0.001) or low (3.58 ± 0.107, p < 0.0005)
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usefulness score. These results agree with the previous findings that found students perceive
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ideas with higher levels of usefulness to be inherently less risky [37]. Our findings extend this
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body of work into the prototyping phases of the design process, demonstrating that concepts with
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higher levels of usefulness are perceived to be less risky, even when presented in various
prototype fidelities.
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Results revealed a statistically significant main effect for expert uniqueness, f(2,633) =
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4.645, p = 0.01, η 2 = 0.014. Post-hoc analysis revealed that ideas that were high in uniqueness
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(3.56 ± 0.097) were perceived to be significantly riskier than those that had a medium (3.14 ±
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0.101, p = 0.009) uniqueness scores. This is not unexpected since novel ideas are perceived to be
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inherently risky. Once again, our findings extend previous work into the prototyping phase of
design, demonstrating that risk perception is much more dependent on concept creativity versus
prototype fidelity.

In ASME
addition, there was a statistically significant two-way interaction between expert
uniqueness and expert usefulness, f(2,633) = 3.111, p = 0.015, η2 = 0.019. Post-hoc analysis was
conducted revealing that for ideas with low uniqueness, those with high usefulness (2.597 ±
0.171) had much lower perceived risk than those with medium usefulness (3.764 ± 0.171, p <
0.0005 ) and low usefulness (3.611 ± 0.171, p < 0.0005 ). This is an interesting finding as it is
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indicative of the summative nature of usefulness and uniqueness in terms of perceived risk. As
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previously demonstrated, increased usefulness (in general) decreases the perceived risk of an
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idea. Yet, increased uniqueness increases the perceived risk of an idea. The above two-way
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interaction indicates that these two facets of a concept are not independent but work to impact
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perceived risk together, thus ideas with low uniqueness, but high usefulness are perceived to be
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the least risky. tN
There was a statistically significant two-way interaction between uniqueness and prototype
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fidelity f(2,633) = 2.718, p = 0.013, η 2 = 0.025. Pairwise comparisons were conducted with a
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Bonferroni correction, revealing that for ideas with low uniqueness, low fidelity prototypes
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(3.087 ± 0.171) were perceived to be significantly less risky than high fidelity prototypes (3.708
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FIGURE 2: PERCEIVED RISKINESS SCORES BY LOW, MEDIUM, AND HIGH

UNIQUENESS FOR LOW, MEDIUM AND HIGH FIDELITY
± 0.177, p = 0.037). In contrast, for ideas with high uniqueness low fidelity prototypes (3.913 ±
0.177) were perceived to be significantly more risky than high fidelity prototypes (3.250 ± 0.173,
p = 0.023), shown in figure 2 below. This interaction reveals that when ideas have high levels of
uniqueness, higher fidelity prototypes could be used to reduce the perceived risk of the idea. This
is a critical finding as it indicates that truly novel ideas may be able to “fake” their way to
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stakeholder buy-in (i.e. reduce the perceived risk) through higher fidelity prototypes.
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DISCUSSION
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The main goal of this study was to investigate the role that individual financial risk aversion,
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idea creativity, and prototype fidelity had on individual concept selection and perceived risk. Our
main results were as follows:
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• An individual’s perceived riskiness of an idea was not related to their financial risk
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aversion score
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• Individuals are more likely to move forward with concepts rated higher in usefulness.
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• Individuals are more likely to move forward with concepts rated at medium levels of
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uniqueness as compared to concepts with high or low levels of uniqueness.
• Ideas with low uniqueness presented as low fidelity prototypes were perceived to be
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significantly less risky than their high-fidelity counterparts

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•
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Ideas with high uniqueness presented as high fidelity prototypes were perceived to be
significantly less risky than their low fidelity counterparts

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Our first research question was developed to understand the relationship between financial
risk aversion, perceived risk, and likelihood to move forward with a concept. Our results found

no statistically significant relationship between financial risk aversion and perceived risk or
likelihood to move forward with a concept. These results indicate that the financial risk aversion
scores are not strongly connected to the perceived riskiness of a concept or the likelihood to
move forward with a concept. This finding is in contradiction to prior research that suggested a
relationship between financial risk aversion and creative concept selection in the engineering
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design process [44]. We speculate that this unexpected result may be due to a lack of variability
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in the financial risk aversion scores within our sample. Our sample was skewed, and the majority
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of the students were very risk prone on the financial risk scale. We also question the validity of
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the financial risk aversion scale to be indicative of individual risk aversion in the context of
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engineering design. Prior work that investigated the risk aversion and perceived risk in software
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development found that these two measures were not related [52]. We highlight the need for
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alternative risk assessment measures, like the Preferences for Creativity Scale [56], to be
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investigated for their ability to accurately measure risk aversion constructs in the context of
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engineering design.
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Our second research question sought to understand the relationship between the creativity of
a concept, fidelity of the prototype, and the likelihood to move forward with a concept in later
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stages of the design process. Our results suggest that as usefulness of an idea increases the
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likelihood to move forward with that idea also increases. Additionally, we found that concepts
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with medium levels of uniqueness were more likely to be chosen to move forward as compared
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to concepts with high or low levels of uniqueness. We also found a significant two-way
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interaction between usefulness and uniqueness. We categorize this effect as a Goldilocks effect in
which students were more likely to move forward with ideas that had medium levels of novelty
and high to medium levels of quality. We hypothesize that this is due to a balance between the

inherent riskiness of truly novel ideas, yet the social biases that may pressure students to choose
“innovative” concepts. Another possible explanation for this effect is that complexity of the ideas
may relate to their uniqueness. Importantly, we found no evidence to suggest that prototype
fidelity affected the go or no-go decisions to move forward with concepts.
Our last research question was focused on investigating the influence of prototype fidelity
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and concept creativity has on the perceived riskiness of an idea. The significant main effects for
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both expert rated uniqueness and usefulness on the perceived riskiness of an idea confirms
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existing theory and research within creativity and concept selection [44]. The interesting results
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from this study was the interaction terms we found between prototype fidelity and concept
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perceived riskiness. Our results indicate that prototype fidelity does impact concept perceived
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riskiness, dependent upon the level of uniqueness or usefulness of the idea. For example, we
tN
found that for ideas with high levels of uniqueness, higher fidelity prototypes were viewed as
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less risky. Our results point to the influential nature of creativity in concept selection. We did not
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find any significant main affects for prototype fidelity on the perceived riskiness of ideas but
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found significant two-way interactions. In other words, prototype fidelity only affects the
perceived riskiness of a concept at certain levels of creativity. This is an important finding as

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products in general can be classified as evolutionary and revolutionary. Evolutionary products

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are minor or incremental improvements on existing products, where revolutionary products are
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paradigm shifting and tend to be more novel or more unique. Our work found that when products
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are very unique, or revolutionary, higher fidelity prototypes are perceived as less risky; this is an
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important finding for startups or intrapreneurs looking to pitch revolutionary new concepts.
Getting stakeholder buy in to secure resources, time, money, etc is critical, and ensuring that
your product or idea is not seen as a risk is key. It is important to note that in the current study,

Copyright (c) 2018
levelbyof
ASME
fidelity was defined by the look of concepts presented to participants. In the lowest
fidelity level sketched concepts were presented, in the middle level concepts were built from
cardboard and photographs of final builds were presented, and in the highest level concepts were
generated using 3D modeling software and screenshots were presented. While the higher levels
of fidelity may have provided participants with more information about material choice or
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product geometry, designer supplied information was kept consistent. All annotations made to
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the original sketch by designers were presented at every level of fidelity. Results indicating that
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higher fidelity prototypes may be perceived as less risky for more novel ideas, give us insights
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into how appearance can impact the perception of risk,
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CONCLUSION
The main goal in this study was to investigate how prototype fidelity affects perceived risk
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and choice of concepts during creative concept selection. This study found that financial risk
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aversion scores taken from behavioral economics do not accurately predict risk aversion in
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engineering design. Our results highlight the potential impact of prototype fidelity on creative
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concept selection and the need for expanding research on the interaction between creative
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concept selection, perceived risk, and prototype fidelity.

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Our study was limited due to the nature of the experiment, specifically the mode of data
collection. Because data was gathered through an online survey and prototypes were presented to
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participants in still photo, our findings might not accurately represent the actual process in
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concept selection. Further research is needed to explore the relationship between the mode that
prototypes are presented to participants (in person, online, video, still photo) and the effect this
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has on perceived risk and concept selection. Future work will explore the usefulness of online
rating systems in rating and selecting physical products. 
While this study looked to uncover the perceived riskiness of the ideas to students and the

prompt implies that performance will be measured by the success of the product in the market
and by the acceptance, or lack of acceptance, of the proposed idea(s) by the “board of directors,”
this was not explicitly defined to the students. We recognize this as a limitation of the study, as
we did not explicitly ask students to define what riskiness meant nor, did we define risk at the
start of the study. In future work, either risk should be explicitly defined for students or
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additional survey questions should be asked in order to understand whether students were using
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similar mental models of risk when evaluating concepts.
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In addition to the mode of data collection, the pool of participants was limited to freshmen
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engineering students in this study. Therefore, these results cannot be generalized for the general
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population. Specifically prior work has found that men are more willing to take risks than
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women [33], more narcissistic individuals take more risks [34], and level of training can impact
tN
risk attitudes [41]. Further exploration of higher level students and professionals is needed as
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well as an investigation of how personality types and gender play a role. Future work should
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investigate not only how industry professionals perform in these risk taking scenarios, but also
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how an individual’s background (i.e. financial history) impact these scores. Through this future
work, different risk taking scales should be investigated for their potential to identify risk taking
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attitudes in the creative concept selection stages of the design process. While financial risk taking
ed
[55] and the engineering domain specific risk taking [40] scales exist, they have not been
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thoroughly investigated for their ability to explain variations in the fuzzy front end of the design
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process and should be investigated, along with the preferences for creativity scale (PCS) [56], for
Ac
their influence on this portion of the design process.
Another limitation of our study was the chosen experts for the creativity ratings. While these
experts were experienced in creativity ratings and milk frother designs, they are not industry

experts. Future work should investigate how the ratings of creativity change between experts in
academia and industry, and if this impacts the relationship between likelihood to move forward
and creativity.
Lastly, there are several aspects of the designs that this study did not explore. For instance,
while the design information provided to the participants was kept consistent for each fidelity
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level, additional information may have been encoded in the images through the use of different
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materials. Future work should investigate the factors that make up a higher fidelity prototype and
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which of the factors can reduce the perceived riskiness of the idea. In addition, the complexity of
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the design ideas were not investigate, and therefore we do not know if the complexity is a factor
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impacting likelihood to move forward. This is a factor worth investigating in the future since
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more unique ideas may be more complex to understand, and therefore may need a higher fidelity
tN
model to communicate them effectively. Lastly, since students were given very little information
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about the products they were choosing to move forward with, we do not know how knowing
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factors such as cost of production, cost of final product, and time to market would affect their
nu
willingness to move forward with a particular idea.
There is little research connecting the concept generation phases of design to the later stages
Ma
of development, such as prototyping and testing. This work explored the impact of prototype
ed
fidelity on concept selection and perceived risk in order to highlight the importance of prototype
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fidelity in the design process. Prototyping represents one of the largest sunk costs of the product
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development process, and thus it is critical for companies to understand how frequently and at
Ac
what level prototypes should be created. The work presented here, along with related future
work, contributes to the understanding of prototype fidelity, concept selection, and perceived
risk.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant
No. 1351493. We would also like to thank Dr. Sarah Ritter for her help with gathering
participants for our study.
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APPENDIX A: EXAMPLE OF THE PROTOTYPING SURVEY
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Figure Cap+ons List
Figure 1 Likelihood to Move Forward Scores by Low, Medium, and High

Levels of Usefulness and Uniqueness.
Figure 2 Perceived Riskiness Scores by Low, Medium, and High Uniqueness

for Low, Medium and High Fidelity
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Table Cap+ons List
Table 1 All ideas at all levels of quality and novelty for low, medium, and
high-fidelity prototypes
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growing marketplace that demands product innovation. However, 40 to 50% of R&D

prototyping strategies that promote the flow of creative ideas.

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innovative products making it to market.

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on concept selection and perceived risk in an educational setting.

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feedback and recommendations.

Risk Taking in Concept Selection

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during concept selection in engineering design. Specifically, to explore risk taking in an

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course of a design project.

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concept and individual financial risk aversion scores?

impacting creative concept selection when working with sketches.

(usefulness or uniqueness) of the concept?

We hypothesized that the creativity of concepts in later stages of design would

uniqueness of the design, represented as a prototype, would negatively influence concept

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(usefulness or uniqueness) of the idea?

Participants were recruited from a first-year undergraduate engineering design course at a

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the following product on the market:

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order for this device to froth milk.

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prototype see the example survey shown in Appendix A.

were uniform across the fidelity levels.

As a reminder, in engineering, risk can be defined as “effect of uncertainty on objectives” [35].

As previously described, participants were prompted to “determine which of the following 9

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the “board of directors

financial risk aversion.

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RQ1: Is There a Relation Between Likelihood To Move Forward With a Concept,

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RQ2: Is There a Relation Between Likelihood To Move Forward With a Concept,

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behaviors of internal design team members.

rating systems in rating and selecting physical products. 