The rapidly changing world scenario and its implications on social needs and behaviours in this new century have stirred the focus of organisations towards the fostering of new ideas. The phenomenon of idea generation has been studied in the field of cognitive psychology in order to better understand the workings of the mind. Substantial innovations often result from transferring solutions from one industry or domain to another by forming correspondence between elements of representation, creating a path for cross-transfer. Analogies possess the potential to juxtapose knowledge from one domain to another, following the principle of making "the strange familiar and the familiar strange" (Gorden, 1961).

In the creative field of design, expert designers often use analogies for strategic problem solving and new idea generation based on prior experiences (Dunber & Blanchettel 2001). Therefore, in the case of novice designers, inculcating this way of thinking can be a way to overcome linear, patterned thinking and expand the boundaries of creative exploration. This stems from the tendency to search for solutions that have previously shown results or search for results within an area of expertise to override the fear of failure. This has led most "design by analogy" studies to focus on data mining (Altshuller 1984) using computational support for big data management and retrieval. While studies reveal that analogy usage is pervasive in many disciplines, there are very few studies that show how and why novice product designers face challenges when using analogy for ideation.