JHJGubbels / Blog /
Morphological Matrices
Morphological Matrices
In a morphological matrix, a designer breaks down a product type into key constituents or features and analyses the different design options for those constituents. Morphological matrices can be used as a product analysis tool and as an ideation tool. The first is quite common, the latter more powerful than you might think. And it all works on a remarkably large range of product types - from physical to digital, from businesses to experiences.
Traditional 'existing product analysis' often involves selecting a few successful products already in the market and analysing those in detail. This frequently becomes a fairly descriptive exercise with limited new learning. Using a morphological matrix, designers first identify key features that would make a product successful. They then find how different products already in the market provide those features. This leads designers to consider a wider range of products (or even similar products from different domains). The explicit choice of specific features in advance also leads to focused analysis rather than description.
As an ideation tool, designers would again identify key features their product would need to have, but now come up with different ideas for those features themselves. Only at the end of the process possible feature combinations are considered. This 'bottom-up' approach leads to considering a wide range of options as the restriction of the bigger picture is initially removed. The explicit choice of specific features in advance again leads to focus. At the same time, a huge number of possible combinations of features is generated.
Consider the morphological matrix for bread in the image above: 24 feature options are identified, leading to more than 4000 (4^6) possible combinations if only one of each feature row is chosen. And more than 16 million (16^6) if more than one feature option per row could be selected.
Whether a morphological matrix is used as an analysis or ideation tool, it is key for designers to push themselves to fill all the boxes. Designers will find it easy to fill the first boxes of each row, but surprising finds or out-of-the-box creative thinking occur when going beyond the obvious.
When generating combinations and communicating ideas or analysis with others, it is important to be able to inspect features 'at-a-glance'. It is tempting to use text only, but doodling and annotating are equally fast and lead to a more usable artefact.
Morphological matrices can become messy. Create them first using a pencil with very fine lines. After that, trace/redraw with a pen and add a dash of colour to improve presentation.
Further Resources
Morphological Matrix Paper A3 © 2025 by JHJ Gubbels, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Sketch - Ink - Trace