Children’s Responses to Divergent and Convergent Design Feedback

In this paper, we explore the divergent and convergent nature of design feedback and the various responses to this feedback from a group of 24 young novice designers (primary school children age 9-11) taking part in a co-design project. Earlier research emphasizes that feedback can encourage a designer to take divergent as well as convergent paths during their design process (Cardoso, Eris, Badke-schaub, & Aurisicchio, 2014; Yilmaz & Daly, 2014, 2016). Yet our previous research shows, that feedback  given to primary school children while designing does not always spark creative thinking (Schut, Klapwijk, Gielen, Van Doorn, & De Vries, 2019). We presume that the responses we found might have been influenced by the type of feedback that preceded them. Therefore, we have elaborated on the results we’ve previously uncovered with an additional analysis of the same case study. This additional analysis shows that divergent feedback given by peers or a client will not necessarily promote divergent thinking processes, whereas convergent feedback will not necessarily promote convergent thinking. Furthermore, responses indicating resistance towards the feedback given were widespread. However, we believe that feedback from clients and peers can still be a fruitful strategy in learning to be creative and in promoting divergent thinking (DT) and convergent thinking (CT) and end with suggestions on how this might be achieved

Design Feedback that Stimulates Children’s Creative Thinking: A Feedback Intervention

Designing is an inherently creative process in which divergent (generative) and convergent (evaluative) thinking drive the creation and development of a design. Nevertheless, navigating these creative thinking processes is not an easy endeavour, especially for young novice designers. In Design & Technology education, design feedback is often seen as an essential pedagogical tool to help guide novice designers’ divergent and convergent paths while designing. Although design feedback can help the creative design process greatly, this does not happen by default. This paper reports on the construction and utilization of a design feedback intervention during a real-life design project with two groups of primary school children (aged 7-12). The goal of the intervention was to stimulate the young novice designers’ creative thinking by guiding the design feedback dialogues with their peers and clients. It guides convergent and divergent design feedback to minimize the resistance towards the feedback and creates openness for new processes of reflection, evaluation, and generation. Our main contribution entails a detailed understanding of the successes and obstacles within the feedback dialogues, as guided by the new feedback intervention, and possible future improvements. Overall, the results show that the intervention can support young novice designers, their peers, and clients in engaging in constructive feedback dialogues, thereby stimulating their creative thinking.Designing is an inherently creative process in which divergent (generative) and convergent (evaluative) thinking drive the creation and development of a design. Nevertheless, navigating these creative thinking processes is not an easy endeavour, especially for young novice designers. In Design & Technology education, design feedback is often seen as an essential pedagogical tool to help guide novice designers’ divergent and convergent paths while designing. Although design feedback can help the creative design process greatly, this does not happen by default. This paper reports on the construction and utilization of a design feedback intervention during a real-life design project with two groups of primary school children (aged 7-12). The goal of the intervention was to stimulate the young novice designers’ creative thinking by guiding the design feedback dialogues with their peers and clients. It guides convergent and divergent design feedback to minimize the resistance towards the feedback and creates openness for new processes of reflection, evaluation, and generation. Our main contribution entails a detailed understanding of the successes and obstacles within the feedback dialogues, as guided by the new feedback intervention, and possible future improvements. Overall, the results show that the intervention can support young novice designers, their peers, and clients in engaging in constructive feedback dialogues, thereby stimulating their creative thinking

Analyzing Children's Contributions and Experiences in Co-design Activities: Synthesizing Productive Practices

Today, it has been broadly acknowledged in the CCI community that children are not only active learners and users of technology, but can also actively participate in the design process. However, it remains challenging to analyze children's experiences and creative contributions resulting from co-design activities (e.g. stories, paper prototypes, enacted ideas). Broadly speaking, a distinction can be made between researchers looking for inspiration in the form of useful design ideas, and researchers that take a more interpretative stance by looking beyond the surface level of children's ideas to better understand and empathize with them. This knowledge about children is often used to more accurately define the problem space at the early stages of design. Both perspectives to co-design can be seen as the opposite ends of the same continuum, and many researchers combine aspects of both depending on where they are in the design process (e.g. defining the design problem, prototyping stage). This workshop will explore different ways to analyze children's (0 to 18 years) experiences and contributions in co-design activities, the perceived benefits and challenges of these approaches, and will serve as a venue for synthesizing productive practices that will move the CCI community forward