Creativity, idea generation, improvisational humor, and product design

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-116).It is widely recognized that innovation and creativity is the new competitive battleground for product development firms. Engineers and product designers are now expected to be highly creative, prolific idea generators in addition to being analytically competent. Thus, it is of interest to study methods to improve a designer's idea generation capabilities. It is believed that wit, being spontaneous humor production, is strongly related to creativity as both involve making nonobvious connections between seemingly unrelated things. This thesis looks into the realm of humor and improvisational comedy to suggest means of enhancing creative output in blue-sky product design idea generation. We have found that the ability to quickly generate many ideas is strongly correlated (r2=.82) with being able to come up with a single, promising, creative idea. It was also found that, with appropriate training, individuals may learn to become more prolific idea generators. Furthermore, improvisational comedians were more proficient at new product idea generation than professional product designers, and methods for training comedians can be effectively adapted to product design idea generation. In a study where 84 participants (students, professional designers and improvisational comedians) took a cartoon caption humor test and a nominal product brainstorming test, we found that improvisational comedians on average produced 20% more product ideas and 25% more creative product ideas than professional product designers. Furthermore, the few individuals that were highly prolific in both creative product ideation and humorous cartoon caption production had an improvisational comedy background. Many of the games used in improvisational comedy training are intended to promote associative thinking. We designed an improvisational comedy workshop composed of these association-based games. A group of 11 subjects who participated in this workshop increased their idea output on average by 37% in a subsequent product brainstorming session. Our findings suggest that improvisational comedy games are a useful warm-up for idea generation, that prolific generation is not a domain-specific ability and that it is possible to teach creativity. Ultimately, this work can lead to the development of tools and methods that designers can use to improve their idea generation skills.by Barry Matthew Kudrowitz.Ph.D

The exploration of concepts for projectile toys

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-200).Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, September 2005 (first author); and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, June 2006 (second author).(cont.) The second concept, eDarts, involved incorporating a capacitor powered micro-circuit and LED into foam darts similar to those used in the current line of Nerf® products. The eDarts created a tracer shot or laser bullet" effect when used in low light conditions. Safety, projectile mass, and axially symmetric loading were the greatest issues of concern. The final suggested eDart incorporated a standard DC power connection with a simple mechanical switch. The eDarts reached comparable distances to the current foam darts on the market. while maintaining a safe Kinetic Energy Density.The goal of this research has been to develop new concepts for foam projectile toys. The team followed a standard design practice and brought two unique concepts to an alpha-prototype level. Through brainstorming sessions the team generated over 100 concepts of which the sponsor selected twelve high potential concepts for first order prototyping. Of these prototypes, the team chose two concepts worthy of refinement and further development. The operational principles of the highest potential concepts were thoroughly analyzed and developed through a series of prototypes. The first concept, Hopper Popper Activation, involved using a bi-stable rubber spring to propel foam balls. This concept created a simple, space-saving, and effective means of storing energy. The hopper popper was implemented in several devices, the most successful being a small hand held toy called the Hand Popper. The greatest issue of concern with the Hopper Popper Activated concepts was the force required to load the toy. The final design implemented a low friction system with a ball guiding channel to reduce this loading force. The final design required a lower operational force than the comparable product on the market, while capable of propelling foam balls 20% further.by William J. Fienup and Barry M. Kudrowitz.second authorS.M

Spinneret: Aiding Creative Ideation through Non-Obvious Concept Associations

Mind mapping is a popular way to explore a design space in creative thinking exercises, allowing users to form associations between concepts. Yet, most existing digital tools for mind mapping focus on authoring and organization, with little support for addressing the challenges of mind mapping such as stagnation and design fixation. We present Spinneret, a functional approach to aid mind mapping by providing suggestions based on a knowledge graph. Spinneret uses biased random walks to explore the knowledge graph in the neighborhood of an existing concept node in the mind map, and provides "suggestions" for the user to add to the mind map. A comparative study with a baseline mind-mapping tool reveals that participants created more diverse and distinct concepts with Spinneret, and reported that the suggestions inspired them to think of ideas they would otherwise not have explored.Comment: ACM CHI 202

Toy Product Design

This course is an introduction to the product design process with an emphasis on designing for children and entertainment. Students will work in small teams to develop a working prototype of a toy. Throughout the semester students will visit local elementary schools to teach basic design practice and understand the minds of young children

The chef as designer: Classifying the techniques that chefs use in creating innovative dishes

This qualitative study explores the methods that chefs use to create innovative marketable product and compares these findings to other design tools. This study is based on a series of interviews with locally recognised chefs in Minnesota and observations of them in their kitchens in order to understand the details of how they conceive and develop dishes from preliminary concept to final plating and user consumption. This paper focuses on idea generation and discusses two key findings: first, the variety of idea generation techniques presented by the chefs can be classified into the creativity tool SCAMPER (substitute, combine, adapt, modify/magnify, put to other use, eliminate, reverse/rearrange); second, chefs evoke the theory of MAYA or Most Advanced Yet Acceptable when innovating new dishes, which implies making novel changes while remaining relatable to the consumer. Other reoccurring topics in the interview discussion of food innovation include play, surprise, and humour

Assessing the quality of ideas from prolific, early-stage product ideation

The goal of many idea generation techniques, such as brainstorming, is to generate a large quantity of ideas with the hopes of having a few outstanding novel ideas that are worth pursuing. The output of such sessions is a large number of rough concept sketches, which require a rapid means of screening to select a manageable set of promising ideas. In this study we develop and test metrics for evaluating large quantities of early-stage product idea sketches. In total, 1767 ideas for three different product themes were used as a test bed. With our findings, we suggest three independent qualities that fully describe an innovative product idea: creative (as a subjective judgment), useful (as defined as having practical applications), and feasible (as determined by experts). Reviewers' subjective ratings of idea creativity had a strong correlation with ratings of idea novelty (r2=.80), but negligible correlation with idea usefulness (r2=.16). The clarity of sketch positively influenced ratings of idea creativity. Another interesting finding is that the quantity of ideas generated by the individual subjects had a strong correlation with that subject's overall creativity scores (r2=.82) and novelty scores (r2=.85), but had weak correlations with that subject's usefulness scores (r2=.38). ©201

Toy Product Design

Toy Product Design is a MIT Public Service Center learning design course offered in the Spring semester. This course is an introduction to the product design process with a focus on designing for play and entertainment. At the end of the course, students present their toy products at the Playsentations to toy designers, engineers, elementary school children and the MIT community. In this course, students work in small teams of 5-6 members to design and prototype new toys. Students work closely with a local sponsor and experienced mentors on a themed toy design project. Students will be introduced to the product development process, including: determining customer needs; brainstorming; estimation; sketching; sketch modeling; concept development; design aesthetics; detailed design; prototyping; and written, visual, and oral communication

The play pyramid: a play classification and ideation tool for toy design

Toy designers and students may benefit from a universal classification system to communicate and ideate new toy concepts. In this paper, we present two graphical tools that help designers to classify and manipulate toy product concepts. The play pyramid is a three-dimensional map that allows designers to classify a toy concept by placing it in a space between what we believe to be four independent axes of play (sensory, fantasy, construction and challenge). The sliding scales of play are modifiers or adjectives that one can use to further describe the play of a toy concept. By taking a toy design and moving it around inside the play pyramid or along the scales of play, the design can take on new and unforeseen play affordances. Both of these tools have been tested and applied in industry sponsored research and design education settings and were successful in expanding upon toy ideas. Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Food Perception and Aesthetics - Linking Sensory Science to Culinary Practice

This systematic overview tries to link scientific knowledge on human perception and appreciation mechanisms to culinary practices. We discuss the roles of the human senses during eating, starting out with basic mechanisms of taste and smell perception, up to principles of aesthetics. These insights are related to how foods are experienced, how ingredients are combined, the use of flavor bases in cuisines, the creation of a full course meal, the choice of a beverage with a dish, and how people learn to appreciate new foods.Design Aesthetic