Resources are an essential aspect of individual problem solving and their availability is critical for success. Resource scarcity is common in many industries and can affect the resources available to prototype, design creatively, and work freely. We argue that designers face scarcity and short timelines on engineering teams, and it is uncertain how these constraints may affect design outcomes and strategies. We also argue that designers must be resilient to overcome challenges faced during problem-solving tasks. In this work, we study the interactions between individual designer resilience, perceived resource scarcity, and perceptions of design performance. A controlled study was conducted to understand the linkages between resource constraints, perceptions of resource scarcity, individual resilience, and perceptions of design outcomes. We found that a perceived general scarcity of time in day-to-day life significantly predicted perceptions of design performance. Further, we found that participants with higher resilience scores were less likely to adapt their design due to resource constraints. Our work builds foundational knowledge about the factors that affect designers’ abilities to effectively react to sudden resource constraints, particularly sudden resource scarcity. As designers and design teams often face sudden and significant changes in resource availability, this work provides critical insight into the factors that may contribute to or detract from designers’ abilities to create and promote creative and innovative design solutions.
