Bounding Creativity: Explicit and Implicit Constraints in the Design Process Yield More Novel Results

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: We present a series of human creativity experiments that examined the effects of two styles of constraints — external task requirements imposed by others and internal fixation on values or ideas that are self-imposed. Counter to prevailing wisdom that late changes to project requirements reduce outcome quality and that design fixation reduces novel concept exploration, we find that both produce more novel results in creative processes. Participants were asked to create static graphic advertisements. The first study introduced participants to a narrowed constraint either at the beginning, middle, or end of the prototyping process. The narrow constraint addressed goal and task requirements by specifying the target audience and ad size. Late constraints were shown to yield more novel results. If explicit constraints can produce more novel constraints, might implicit constraints do the same? The second study examined the effect of fixation on creativity. Higher fixation (induced via preference construction) yielded more novel results. However, this effect reversed when participants were also given late constraints. Designers may not welcome late constraints or design fixation; however, our results showed that boundaries around a creative problem, whether they be imposed by others or oneself, may further optimize ideation and design methodologies.

Type of resource	text
Date created	2015

Author	Zhou, Elaine
Advisor	Bernstein, Michael
Degree granting institution	Stanford University. Department of Computer Science.

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/tf829zy3088

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Zhou, Elaine and Bernstein, Michael. (2015). Bounding Creativity: Explicit and Implicit Constraints in the Design Process Yield More Novel Results. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/tf829zy3088

Undergraduate Theses, School of Engineering

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