Mind wandering "Ahas" versus mindful reasoning: alternative routes to creative solutions.

Based on mixed results linking both mindfulness and its opposing construct mind wandering to enhanced creativity, we predicted that the relationship between mindfulness and creativity might depend on whether creative problems are approached through analytic strategy or through "insight" (i.e., sudden awareness of a solution). Study 1 investigated the relationship between trait mindfulness and compound remote associates problem solving as a function of participants' self-reported approach to each problem. The results revealed a negative relationship between mindfulness and problem-solving overall. However, more detailed analysis revealed that mindfulness was associated with impaired problem solving when approaching problems with insight, but increased problem solving when using analysis. In Study 2, we manipulated participants' problem-solving approach through instructions. We again found a negative relationship between mindfulness and creative performance in general, however, more mindful participants again performed better when instructed to approach problems analytically

Demographic Faultlines and Creativity In Diverse Groups

Despite the oft made argument that demographic diversity should enhance creativity, little is known about this relationship. We propose that group diversity, measured in terms of demographic faultlines, affects creativity through its effects on group members’ felt psychological safety to express their diverse ideas and the quality of information sharing that takes place across subgroup boundaries. Further, we propose that the relationship between faultlines and creativity will be moderated by task interdependence and equality of subgroup sizes. Finally, we provide suggestions for how organizations can establish norms for self-verification and use accountability techniques to enhance creativity in diverse groups

Incorporating characteristics of human creativity into an evolutionary art algorithm

A perceived limitation of evolutionary art and design algorithms is that they rely on human intervention; the artist selects the most aesthetically pleasing variants of one generation to produce the next. This paper discusses how computer generated art and design can become more creatively human-like with respect to both process and outcome. As an example of a step in this direction, we present an algorithm that overcomes the above limitation by employing an automatic fitness function. The goal is to evolve abstract portraits of Darwin, using our 2nd generation fitness function which rewards genomes that not just produce a likeness of Darwin but exhibit certain strategies characteristic of human artists. We note that in human creativity, change is less choosing amongst randomly generated variants and more capitalizing on the associative structure of a conceptual network to hone in on a vision. We discuss how to achieve this fluidity algorithmically

Are we there yet? Insights to support the use of reflective practice methods for explorative practice-led doctoral research into real-world design problems

This paper concerns the use of design thinking in practice-led doctoral design research. It examines methodological appropriateness for research through design. Much practice-led design research begins with the aim of improving knowledge and understanding for design practitioners involved in real-world problem-solving. However this can be compromised in both its applicability and/or relevance as the context of the practice or the articulation of the theory/practice relationship becomes esoteric to those other than design theorists. It is our observation, as supervisors and examiners of Design PhD students, that practice-led design researchers often get caught up in a research paradigm and process that reduces their project to a post-hoc rationalisation of the problem, the methodology and resulting knowledge; creating an output that alienates the intended primary audience. This paper examines methodological appropriateness for practice-led design research. It is based on a correlation of critical literature and reflection on several practice-led doctoral design projects. It considers the theoretical frameworks and research processes to support exploratory practice-led design research by expert designers. It argues that for this type of research the research question(s) and research design should co-evolve in order to generate new insight and understanding of future design directions; documenting this evolution forms a vital element of the research content

Design thinking support: information systems versus reasoning

Numerous attempts have been made to conceive and implement appropriate information systems to support architectural designers in their creative design thinking processes. These information systems aim at providing support in very diverse ways: enabling designers to make diverse kinds of visual representations of a design, enabling them to make complex calculations and simulations which take into account numerous relevant parameters in the design context, providing them with loads of information and knowledge from all over the world, and so forth. Notwithstanding the continued efforts to develop these information systems, they still fail to provide essential support in the core creative activities of architectural designers. In order to understand why an appropriately effective support from information systems is so hard to realize, we started to look into the nature of design thinking and on how reasoning processes are at play in this design thinking. This investigation suggests that creative designing rests on a cyclic combination of abductive, deductive and inductive reasoning processes. Because traditional information systems typically target only one of these reasoning processes at a time, this could explain the limited applicability and usefulness of these systems. As research in information technology is increasingly targeting the combination of these reasoning modes, improvements may be within reach for design thinking support by information systems

The Value of Stimulated Dissatisfaction

“I’m not saying it’s a good quality to have, but my observation is that good designers are never happy, they’re never satisfied, never content” (Adrian Stokes, quoted in Spencer, 2008, p. 145). It seems self-evident that designers, whose raison d’être is to initiate change in man-made things (Jones, 1970), devising courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones (Simon, 1969), will be dissatisfied, at some level, with the way they experience the material world. However, recent research (Spencer, 2008) suggests that expert designers deliberately enhance the pressure and stress of the design situation – stimulating dissatisfaction. By stimulating the experience of dissatisfaction their imaginative and investigative action is given urgency, focus and purpose as they pursue excellence and attempt to unfold from their own view of the world to empathise with a broad project community. This discursive paper highlights the need for a developed understanding of the reflective practitioner model to inform the post-rationalist generation of design methods. This paper: reviews critical literature about the experience of designing; discusses the role of dissatisfaction within the practise of design; and presents a research project that aims to evaluate the value of stimulated dissatisfaction for the purpose of supporting practitioners’ empathic appreciation in early design direction generation. This paper argues that the reflective practitioner model of the designer must address the stimulation of dissatisfaction as a condition of creative and explorative design practice