OUGD501 - Idea Generation Techniques among Creative Professionals

Idea Generation Techniques among Creative Professionals Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2009 

Creativity has become a commodity for businesses and individuals 
There has been an increase in interest  in the development of technologies to aide the creative process.
Creativity within the design process allows for competitive advantage.
Human Computer Interaction research helps to develop technology to aide the cognitive process within creativity.
Models of creativity have been constructed in order to help with the creation of creative support tools
Suggested that some of these models are too simple
Creativity models are not linear however they are always portrayed in this way 
Idea generation is described as the process of generating novel and applicable ideas
There is a direct link between the amount of initial ideas produced and the quality of the final outcome 
Idea generation is the hardest stage for professionals as suspending judgement on ideas is difficult 
There is a focus on the quality of an idea, rather than the quantity of ideas. 
Association and patterns need to be broken to create new ways of thinking.
Designers see their design process as a creative process and suggest creativity is important throughout the cycle.

Idea Generation Model 

The Idea Generation model has three categories research, represent and refine with inspiration used all around these.
Inspiration is needed throughout the process
The problems domain needs to be researched in order to create concepts
Initial ideas are the physically visualised 

Creativity research aims to help with the creation of tools for a more efficient and successful creative process

Inspiration

Inspiration occurs at any point within the idea generation stage 
Passive searching is searching without having a concept and includes looking through magazines, immersion in relevant information, reflecting on information, socialising to clear the mind and incubation of information.

Research

In the research phase extra knowledge is needed to identify possible solutions.
User research is is conducted to be able to empathise with users 
Reflection on previous work and active searching on the web and books for information is also used 
Within research documentation and sketches both physically and digital of ideas are used 

Represent 

Physical things are used to conceptualise an idea
Acting can help show an idea that cannot be described through sketches or writing 
Word lists 
Prototypes are used as a quick way of visualising concepts physically 
Word lists involve listing features of to be included in the design

Refine 

Ideas are brought together and evaluated to reduce them down

Co - Creation 

Collaboration means working with someone else to generate ideas
Brainstorming popular with designers and involves generating as many ideas as possible in a period of time 

Limitations of some of these techniques 

Collaboration effective when everyone is together however it is harder to share ideas when apart.
Current collaborative technologies e.g. video conferencing, do not meet user needs leading to a reversion to traditional techniques e.g. emailing.
Finding people with expertise on a domain outside their own proves difficult so software to aide this process is needed 
To reflect on work a system for storage and retrieval is needed with with easy searching 
In active searching people cannot always find information or it doesn't exist, so a tagging system on information sources would useful
An expertise search engine would allow for information to be gathered that is currently not available.
Immersion in information is easy for an individual if in the same location as the material , similarly if working in a group however when people are apart it becomes more difficult. A tool to replicate these locations is needed for people to view and continue adding to them.