Design Research and Designing: The Synergy and The Team 59 3. Design projects conducted by students. The examples are: 1. SNS-based Health Care Service Design for Teenagers. 2. Integrated Service and Brand Design for Small Medical Clinics in Seoul Metropolitan City. In both of the example projects, tight collaborations between the CDI research team and medical care experts are being made. D: Combined design and research projects with government sponsors: Some research projects have inherent designing activities so that new findings are used in designing with certain goals. In this kind of projects, the project team can be composed of design consultancies and research institutions where designing tasks are mainly conducted by design agencies with strong collaboration with research institutions. An example of this category is: LED Lighting Design based on User Emotional Experiences 4 The Synergy between Design Research and Designing Investigative design projects employed to analaze design processes (Park and Kim, 2007) or to evaluate some aspects in designing acitivites (Kim et al, 2007) would rather serve for the sake of research. Here the critical aspect is that the experiment designing project would be as similar as possible in real designing to rule out the effect of experimental settings. Thus we do not consider these projects would get any benefit from the research side. As a way to argue for synergy between design research and designing project, a few example cases are highlighted. To demonstrate the PSS design methodology and its constituents research outcomes, a significant design project has started with used clothes reuse issues (Kim et al, 2010-b). The resulting designing outcome is a PSS called Used Clothes TakeIN which takes used clothes back in usage where totally different user experience values are achieved compared with the usual used clothes bins. This designing project was conducted by the research team who developed the E3 value concept (Cho et al, 2010) and the PSS design methods including context-based activitiy modeling method. With the extensive nature of the TakeIN project, the research outcome has become matured while this totally new methods would have been applied only by the research team themselves. Once the PSS design method has been developed, various constituent methods have been utilized in industry sponsored design projects though the projects address products only, not PSS. For example, user requirements identified through the generative tools approach have been categorized using the context- based activity modelling method where the goal contexts play the key role in organizing a few hundreds of requirement in a systematic manner. Then these requirement themes are used in determining user experience appraisal criteria. As the design tasks involve diverse issues, rather researchers approach in step-by-step organizing and documenting pays off in comparison to traditional designerly ways of doing rather than examining. In a way, more and more designing tasks would require this kind of research- oriented designers with systematic information management. In other words, design creativity would require diverse characteristics as discussed in (Kim et al, 2010-a). Another important synergetic support that real world designing projects provide for research would be the scaling-up effect. As applied in real world scale problems, methods from design research become scaled up and the contributions of tools are appreciated. 5 The Team of Designers and Researchers The team of designing projects to get the synergetic effect with research needs various characteristics. There exists critical role in the overall direction of the project as such team would require proper balancing in designing and research association. The tendency to move toward generating design solutions need be adjusted when methodological issues and other situations where research-oriented considerations deserve may need attention. Also those team members who are confident about the methodologies and tools that are developed in research and used in designing must be included in the team. Step-by-step application of structured design processes often can be seen as ineffective, but strong adherence to those would be needed in validating research outcomes. Without confidence, such adherence would not be expected. On the other hand, implementers who will generate and test many possibilities, rather typical designerly thinkers, would also be needed to prevent the team from remaining as research team, not designing team. 60 Y. S. Kim In the case of recent CDI experiences, those team members of the third characteristics come from different sources. For some projects, the implementing designers are coming from CDI internally. For others, they are from design consultancies. While three kinds of member characteristics above mentioned are needed in a typical designing project with some ties to research, design team members who reflect more on design methods and processes would be desirable as designing tasks are getting more complex as seen in recent projects. The following hypotheses may be made. A design reasoning model has been proposed where seeing-imagining-drawing iterations of (McKim, 1972) have been detailed with primitive processes of perception, analysis, interpretation, generation, transformation, maintenance, internal representation and external representation from visual reasoning processes (Park and Kim, 2007). Would a designer good at the visual reasoning model be a better visual reasoner? Would a designer who reflects often on the processes be a more confident designer? Would a confident designer be more creative? These questions would bring about some discussions at the panel session. 6 Discussions This panel discussion position paper intends to promote discussion on the association of designing projects and design research. Here real world designing projects with industry and public sector clients are the primary ones whose relation with research are more meaningful. Research institutions need to be able to conduct designing projects beyond students project either with their own team members or with collaborating design practitioners. The reverse question whether practicing designers can conduct design research tasks either by themselves or in collaboration with research institutions should receive interrogation and discussion as well. References Cho CK, Kim YS, Lee WJ, (2010) Economical, Ecological and Experience Values for Product-Service Systems. Int'l. Conf. Design & Emotion, Chicago Horváth I, (2007) Comparison of Three Methodological Approaches of Design Research. Int'l. Conf. on Engineering Design (ICED), Paris Kim MH, Kim YS, Lee HS, Park JA, (2007) An Underlying Cognitive Aspect of Design Creativity: Limited Commitment Mode Control Strategy. Design Studies 28(6): 585–604 Kim YS, Jin ST, Lee SW, (2010) Relations between Design Activities and Personal Creativity Modes. Journal of Engineering Design, in print Kim YS, Lee SW, Kim M, Lee WJ, Park JA, (2010) A Systematic Design Methodology for Product-Service Systems and a Design Case. to appear in Int'l. Service Innovation Design Conference, Hakodate McKim R, (1972) Experiences in Visual Thinking. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, Los Angeles Park JA, Kim YS, (2007) Visual Reasoning and Design Processes. Int'l. Conf. on Engineering Design (ICED), Paris Stappers PJ, (2007) Doing Design as a Part of Doing Research. In: Michel R, (Ed) Design Research Now, Birkhäuser, Basel, Switzerland Theories on Design Creativity Not from Scratch: The DMS Model of Design Creativity Gabriela Goldschmidt Influence of Environmental Information on Expert-perceived Creativity of Ideas Daniel Collado-Ruiz and Hesamedin Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi Towards a New Theory for Design Activity Reasoning Denis Choulier Not from Scratch: The DMS Model of Design Creativity Gabriela Goldschmidt Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel Abstract. Visual stimuli have been shown to have a considerable impact on design creativity, but their crucial role is not reflected in most current design creativity models. Likewise, although there is ample knowledge today about memory activation while processing stimuli and the difference between processing during creative thinking and ordinary processing, this is not echoed in models of design creativity. In this paper a model of design creativity is proposed that links among three very different entities, namely Designer, Memory and Stimuli (DMS), to account for what is believed to illuminate design creativity. Keywords: Designer, Design creativity, Memory, Stimulus 1 Introduction The scientific research of creativity is relatively recent, although creativity as an extraordinary gift of the human mind has attracted the attention of thinkers for many centuries. From a view of an almost miraculous phenomenon that should not be probed into, lest it be hampered, psychologists started offering explanations and models in order to better understand instances of creativity. We are well familiar with "Aha!" paradigms, which describe creativity mainly as a sudden vision of a solution to a problem, typically after a long search (Roberts, 1989). Wallas (1926) proposed the still popular notion of 'incubation' as a must in the creative process. More recently the study of creativity has been divided into separate examinations of the creative person, the creative process and the creative product (e.g., Gardner, 1988), to which some have added the creative environment (Amabile et al., 1996). Tests for the measurements of creativity have been developed (e.g., Torrance, 1988), and in parallel methods for the enhancement of creativity have been proposed (e.g., Osborn, 1953). The latter are in good currency in today's global business world, in which innovation is such a prime competitive asset. The design community has taken great interest in creativity research as design is by definition a field in which innovation and creativity are always a high priority; today's Design Thinking method prizes itself for promoting creative thinking in the service of corporate success. In this paper we propose a new model of design creativity, one that capitalizes on the fact that designers, who are inherently visual thinkers, make extensive use of visual images in the process of designing (we focus here on design of physical two and three-dimensional entities). We claim that visual thinking concerns input as well as output: on the one hand it entails the 'consumption' of visual images of all sorts, and on the other it rests on the production of visual representations as thinking aids such as sketches (e.g., Do and Gross, 1995; Goldschmidt, 1994; Suwa and Tversky, 1997). In this paper we do not address the generation of visual representations but center on the role of visual displays, which we aggregate under the term stimuli, in creative design thinking. We suggest that designers use stimuli all the time; they never start a design exploration from scratch but build on what they already know and what they can infer from the various stimuli they utilize, consciously or unconsciously. The model also dwells on the architecture of memory and its activation when processing stimuli. Neuroscience teaches us enough about these processes to be able to integrate them into a proposed model of design creativity. Our model brings together person and process (but it does not address product) and it does so by connecting Designer, Memory and Stimuli. Under Designer we list the main attributes we expect to find in the creative designer; under Memory we describe the memory activation patterns that have been found to distinguish creative thinking from ordinary thinking, and under Stimuli we discuss the potential affects of different types of stimuli on design creativity. In section 2 we briefly discuss the three components of the DMS model. In Section 3 we lay out dual relationships between each pair of the model's components. We then proceed to an integrated model of the three components in section 4. Finally, section 5 consists of a brief summary and concluding remarks. 64 G. Goldschmidt 2 The Components of the DMS Model This section outlines the components of the DMS model: Designer, Memory, and Stimuli. Since they are not of a kind, each is self-contained. 2.1 Designer Design creativity is not either present or not present, and designers are not creative or non-creative. Rather, creativity can be plotted as a continuum, and designers may be placed anywhere on this continuum. For the sake of the current discussion we shall refer to the 'creative designer', by which we mean a designer who is considered to be more creative than average, without going into detail or attempting to measure creativity. Figure 1 describes the designer's attributes which we take to be related to creativity. We disregard most generic 'personality' (and other) attributes and concentrate on the ones related to handling stimuli. The list of attributes is hybrid, pertaining to mental abilities as well as background in terms of experience and knowledge. Fig. 1. Designer attributes of creativity The first and possibly most important attribute of the creative designer is flexibility, which pertains to the ability to switch back and forth between associative, divergent thinking, and analytic, convergent thinking. Both, and shifts between them, are needed for creative outcomes. Theories of creativity tend to over- emphasize the role of divergent thinking in creativity, but as important as it is, it is not enough and the flexible shifts between the two modes of thinking are of the essential in creativity (Mednick, 1962; Mendelsohn, 1976). The second important attribute of the creative designer is his or her sensitivity. We refer here to a special kind of sensitivity, related to the ability to infer useful information from a variety of sources including stimuli of all sorts (see section 2.3), which also requires considerable openness to new experiences. The sensitive designer has his eyes wide open and is always ready to take in stimuli, whether in a planned manner or as a result of random encounters. Stimuli serve the designer as examples and sources of analogy, for a current target task or for storage in memory, where they remain until they are retrieved when an appropriate occasion presents itself. Many designers are in the habit of surrounding themselves with stimuli as potential sources of inspiration, and some have physical or, today, digital archives of various images and objects that await an opportunity to play a role in generating design ideas (Curtis, 1986; Keller et al., 2009; Lasdun, 1976). Further, a creative designer must be in possession of visual literacy, which "is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading” (Wikipedia March 2010). People with good visual literacy are able to make meaningful interpretations of visual stimuli that mean little or nothing to those with low visual literacy. Combined with sensitive attention to stimuli, this allows a designer to engage in two very important cognitive acts: the act of abstraction and the act of transformation. Abstraction and transformation allow one to connect between a stimulus, which may be random, and a problem at hand, by focusing on relations among elements of the stimulus rather than on its properties alone, and by imagining transformations of those elements. Finally, at least some expertise is required. An expert in any domain boasts an extended memory of cases and concepts in that domain, and is able to draw similarities between a current task and cases that he or she is knowledgeable about. Expertise allows us to make longer chains of associations than is otherwise possible (Chase and Simon, 1973), and this contributes to the ability to generalize and abstract. In divergent thinking, the possibility to abstract and transform, combined with the ability to pay attention to a large and sometimes random array of stimuli, all contribute to streams of thought and conceptual fluidity, which is the antithesis of fixation and an important ingredient of creativity. 2.2 Memory Our description of memory activation patterns is perforce quite sketchy; it builds largely on Gabora (2010). The architecture of memory is a given; we hardly have any control over it, and there is nothing unique about memory activation in conjunction with Designer Sensitivity Expertise Associative (divergent) thinking Analytic (convergent) thinking Structured & random search ‘Hunt’ for stimuli Meaningful alternative interpretation of stimuli Ability to abstract and transform Current use Visual literacyFlexibility storage Expanded memory in domain Long chain of associations Attention to details/wholes Conceptual fluidity Designer Sensitivity Expertise Associative (divergent) thinking Analytic (convergent) thinking Structured & random search ‘Hunt’ for stimuli Meaningful alternative interpretation of stimuli Ability to abstract and transform Current use Visual literacyFlexibility storage Expanded memory in domain Long chain of associations Attention to details/wholes Conceptual fluidity Not from Scratch: The DMS Model of Design Creativity 65 design activities, as compared to other activities. However, since we stress the role of stimuli in design creativity, we consider it essential to outline how stimuli are processed in memory (see Figure 2). The first notable trait of memory is that it is distributed (Kanerva, 1988). This means that the storage of memory items is distributed across many memory locations (neurons), in a restricted region. The second important trait is the fact that memory is content addressable (Gabora, 2010). That is, the content of a memory item corresponds to the location (neuron/s) in which it is stored and from where it can be retrieved. As a result, items with related meaning are stored in overlapping or close locations. Attention to a stimulus causes activation; the pattern of activation may be flat, or spiky, according to the type of attention we pay to the stimulus and the kind of thinking it evokes. A flat activation corresponds to a high level of activation, which results from de-focused attention to a stimulus or stimuli. In this case more overlapping memory locations are activated in the relevant region. De-focused attention is directed at the overall image and many of its details. In contrast, focused attention, wherein attention is paid to select details of a stimulus, results in a distribution of memory locations that are further from one another and therefore create a spiky pattern. The latter corresponds to analytic, convergent thought, whereas the former is more related to associative, divergent thought. Creativity requires variable focus, i.e. shifts between the two modes of attention. This is one aspect of memory activation that is controllable, and the ability to spontaneously widen and shrink the scope of attention and therefore the activation function, is indispensible in creative thinking (Gabora, 2010; Martindale, 1999). Fig. 2. Schematic memory activation architecture 2.3 Stimuli Anything may be a stimulus. Visual stimuli can be purposefully and carefully selected as sources of inspiration, as is practiced routinely in e.g., the fashion design industry (Eckert and Stacey, 2000). But stimuli may also be random images the designer chances upon, and is sensitive enough to pay attention to, either because an association is perceived between the stimulus and a current problem the designer is preoccupied with, or because something in the stimulus is attractive or interesting enough for the designer to want to store it in memory for potential use later in time. Stimuli may be related to the domain in which the designer (or other problem-solver) works, in which case they are referred to as within-domain; they may even be actual examples of solutions to current problems. Alternatively, stimuli may be extraneous to that domain altogether, and are then called between- domains stimuli. A stimulus may be perceived in the real world, as an object or a pictorial image, or it may be an inner representation the designer evokes using mental imagery. Finally, although we address only visual stimuli in this work, non-visual stimuli may also have an affect on designers' thinking and their creativity (Goldschmidt and Litan, 2009.). There is anecdotal (Curtis, 1986) as well as experimental evidence (Casakin and Goldschmidt, 1999) that exposure to stimuli and their usage affects design creativity. Within domain images limit the scope of search in a design space, whereas between domain ones potentially widen the search, thereby allowing for opportunities to develop novel thoughts. Between- domain stimuli enhance abstraction and transformation more than do within domain stimuli. Examples of solutions have been shown to actually be detrimental to creativity, as designers find it very hard to divorce themselves from properties of such images shown to them at the outset of a design search (e.g., Cardoso and Badke-Schaub, 2009). Figure 3 is a schematic depiction of the different types of stimuli and what they afford. Fig. 3. Stimuli types and their effects on designing Memory Distributed Content addressable Defocused attention High activation Focused attention Low activation Flat activation function Spiky activation function Related meaning stored in overlapping locations; address is determined by activation pattern Attention to more aspects of stimuli – more retrieval opportunities Attention to fewer aspects of stimuli – less retrieval opportunities Memory Distributed Content addressable Defocused attention High activation Focused attention Low activation Flat activation function Spiky activation function Related meaning stored in overlapping locations; address is determined by activation pattern Attention to more aspects of stimuli – more retrieval opportunities Attention to fewer aspects of stimuli – less retrieval opportunities Stimuli Between domains Within domain Wide interpretability open-ended associations Domain general Limited interpretations Examples Fixation Stimuli Between domains Within domain Wide interpretability open-ended associations Domain general Limited interpretations Examples Fixation 66 G. Goldschmidt 3 Two-fold Relationships: DM, MS, and SD In this section we outline the main relationships between each pair of the DMS design creativity model components. 3.1 Designer-Memory (DM) The designer's flexibility to oscillate between associative and analytic thinking (roughly divergent and convergent, respectively) is responsible for shifts between flat and spiky activation functions in memory. Sensitivity and openness make it possible primarily to defocus attention (McCrae and Ingraham, 1987), but also to focus attention when relevant details are picked up in a stimulus. High visual literacy is conducive to attention to more aspects of a stimulus, thereby causing more activation and more overlaps, and eventually a flat activation pattern, which allows for more retrieval opportunities. This in turn helps generate conceptual fluency in the designer's search for novel ideas. Figure 4 depicts these links between Designer and Memory. 3.2 Memory-Stimuli (MS) Different stimuli evoke different memory activation patterns. Same task examples, and to a lesser degree other within-domain stimuli, tend to restrict attention only to certain features of a stimulus that are closely related to the problem the designer is in the course of solving. Such stimuli are therefore responsible mainly for focused attention and therefore for a spiky activation pattern. In contrast, between-domains stimuli typically generate defocused attention; more aspects of the stimulus are encoded and therefore a flat activation pattern results, and more retrieval opportunities from a wider range present themselves. These links are represented in Figure 5. 3.3 Stimuli-Designer (SD) Finally, there are links between stimuli types and the way in which the designer acts on them, as shown in Figure 6. The more the designer is in the habit of constantly 'hunting' for stimuli as sources of inspiration, the greater the chance that random searches would lead to wide-ranging, even unexpected and possibly surprising associations between images that may emerge as sources of inspiration and aspects Memory Distributed Content addressable Defocused attention High activation Focused attention Low activation Flat activation function Spiky activation function Related meaning stored in overlapping locations; address is determined by activation pattern Attention to more aspects of stimuli – more retrieval opportunities Attention to fewer aspects of stimuli – less retrieval opportunities Memory Distributed Content addressable Defocused attention High activation Focused attention Low activation Flat activation function Spiky activation function Related meaning stored in overlapping locations; address is determined by activation pattern Attention to more aspects of stimuli – more retrieval opportunities Attention to fewer aspects of stimuli – less retrieval opportunities Designer Sensitivity Expertise Associative (divergent) thinking Analytic (convergent) thinking Structured & random search ‘Hunt’ for stimuli Meaningful alternative interpretation of stimuli Ability to abstract and transform Current use Visual literacyFlexibility storage Expanded memory in domain Long chain of associations Attention to details/wholes Conceptual fluidity Designer Sensitivity Expertise Associative (divergent) thinking Analytic (convergent) thinking Structured & random search ‘Hunt’ for stimuli Meaningful alternative interpretation of stimuli Ability to abstract and transform Current use Visual literacyFlexibility storage Expanded memory in domain Long chain of associations Attention to details/wholes Conceptual fluidity Fig. 4. Designer-memory (DM) links Not from Scratch: The DMS Model of Design Creativity 67 of the current task. The ensuing wide interpretability of such stimuli enhances the power of abstracting and transforming them by the designer, and conceptual fluidity is thus well served. 3.3 Stimuli-Designer (SD) Finally, there are links between stimuli types and the way in which the designer acts on them, as shown in Figure 6. The more the designer is in the habit of constantly 'hunting' for stimuli as sources of inspiration, the greater the chance that random searches would lead to wide-ranging, even unexpected and possibly surprising associations between images that may emerge as sources of inspiration and aspects of the current task. The ensuing wide interpretability of such stimuli enhances the power of abstracting and transforming them by the designer, and conceptual fluidity is thus well served. 4 Three-fold Interactions: DMS We can now attempt to piece together the three-fold scheme of links among Designer, Memory and Stimuli, as shown in Figure 7 (last page). This remains a sketchy and simplified portrayal of a very complex network of links, in which small variations may result in considerable differences in the overall picture. The components, sub-components and links proposed here are also devoid of any quantitative values indicative of their power: the strength of links among components may have significant effects on the overall system, but at present we are not in a position to attach weights to components or links. Clearly, many of the components of the model, and links among them, are not unique to design activities. However, the introduction of stimuli as a major component of creativity is not typical of generic creativity descriptions. It is the strong influence of this component in various physical design disciplines, and possibly in other fields such as the visual arts and possibly also certain scientific disciplines, that prompted its status as a core component of creativity in this model. We should bear in mind the hybrid nature of this network of links which, in our understanding, reflects the complexity of creative processes in which factors that are not of a kind impact each other. Our point here is that practice appears to be way ahead of research already today. Creativity research, basic and applied, must be very much aware of this in planning research agendas. Stimuli Between domains Within domain Wide interpretability open-ended associations Domain general Limited interpretations Examples Fixation Stimuli Between domains Within domain Wide interpretability open-ended associations Domain general Limited interpretations Examples Fixation Memory Distributed Content addressable Defocused attention High activation Focused attention Low activation Flat activation function Spiky activation function Related meaning stored in overlapping locations; address is determined by activation pattern Attention to more aspects of stimuli – more retrieval opportunities Attention to fewer aspects of stimuli – less retrieval opportunities Memory Distributed Content addressable Defocused attention High activation Focused attention Low activation Flat activation function Spiky activation function Related meaning stored in overlapping locations; address is determined by activation pattern Attention to more aspects of stimuli – more retrieval opportunities Attention to fewer aspects of stimuli – less retrieval opportunities Fig. 5. Memory-stimuli (MS) links 68 G. Goldschmidt 5 In Conclusion Creativity has been studied primarily by psychologists who are, for the most part, verbally and not visually inclined (Kaufmann, 1980). It is therefore not surprising that not enough attention has been paid to visual factors that impact creativity in certain fields, of which design is a prime example. In recent years, with a growing reverence for design creativity, considerable efforts have been made to study design creativity. That stimuli are recognized as potential influences on design creativity is evident from the growing body of research about the use of stimuli and other visual primers as a method to increase creativity (as judges by design experts). The purpose of this paper is to offer a preliminary conceptual framework that gives center-stage to stimuli as components of design creativity. This approach reflects a firm belief that designers never start from scratch. They rely on their previous knowledge and experience, of course, but often this is not enough. If the resultant design is to be novel and creative, something has to trigger off a search in what often is unchartered territory. It is here that stimuli come into the picture: a suitable stimulus in the hands of a designer with a well prepared mind (which is a mixed bag, of course) activates memory such that new associations with items stored in memory may suggest the hoped-for solution. The proposed DMS model is rudimentary and it can and should be refined, revised and expanded. We hope to undertake this work in future research and invite others to join us in this endeavor. Acknowledgements The writing of the paper was partially supported by VPR grant #1007883 from the Fund for the Promotion of Research at the Technion, herewith gratefully acknowledged. Stimuli Between domains Within domain Wide interpretability open-ended associations Domain general Limited interpretations Examples Fixation Stimuli Between domains Within domain Wide interpretability open-ended associations Domain general Limited interpretations Examples Fixation Designer Sensitivity Expertise Associative (divergent) thinking Analytic (convergent) thinking Structured & random search ‘Hunt’ for stimuli Meaningful alternative interpretation of stimuli Ability to abstract and transform Current use Visual literacyFlexibility storage Expanded memory in domain Long chain of associations Attention to details/wholes Conceptual fluidity Designer Sensitivity Expertise Associative (divergent) thinking Analytic (convergent) thinking Structured & random search ‘Hunt’ for stimuli Meaningful alternative interpretation of stimuli Ability to abstract and transform Current use Visual literacyFlexibility storage Expanded memory in domain Long chain of associations Attention to details/wholes Conceptual fluidity Fig. 6. Stimuli-designer (SD) links . Control Strategy. Design Studies 28( 6): 585 –604 Kim YS, Jin ST, Lee SW, (2010) Relations between Design Activities and Personal Creativity Modes. Journal of Engineering Design, in print Kim. to illuminate design creativity. Keywords: Designer, Design creativity, Memory, Stimulus 1 Introduction The scientific research of creativity is relatively recent, although creativity as. impact creativity in certain fields, of which design is a prime example. In recent years, with a growing reverence for design creativity, considerable efforts have been made to study design creativity.