DUNBAR FOUND THAT GRANULAR problems benefit from local analogies, and conceptual problems lend themselves to regional analogies. In fact, the more you are able to extract the “crucial features” of a problem, the further afield you can go. A separate study of a medical-plastics47 design group, conducted by Bo T. Christensen and Christian D. Schunn, found that the designers tapped a veritable circus of analogies, including zippers, credit cards, toilet paper, shoes, milk containers, Christmas decorations, waterwheels, picture puzzles, venetian blinds, and lingerie.
