What Happens When Creativity Is Exhausted? Design Tools as an Aid for Ideation

• In Event: 31.063 - The Design of Teacher Tools, Evaluative Tools, and Learning Environments That Promote Motivation and Design Thinking

Abstract

In this study, an idea generation tool called Design Heuristics was employed in an industrial design course at a large midwestern university. Students were given 30 minutes to brainstorm using any existing tools; then, after ten minutes of instruction on the new tool, students brainstormed for an additional 30 minutes. Working on their own, participants generated an average of 6 concepts, while when using the new tool on the same problem, participants generated 2.74 more concepts on average. While the initial ideation session resulted in more concepts, the use of Design Heuristics in the second session resulted in concepts with higher overall quality in terms of novelty and specificity, even when participants had initially “exhausted” their own idea generation.

Authors

• Colin M. Gray, Purdue University

• Seda Yilmaz, Iowa State University

• Colleen M. Seifert, University of Michigan

• Shanna Daly, University of Michigan

• Richard Gonzalez, University of Michigan