The appearance of creative behavior in later stage design processes

Abstract

Creativity is widely seen as an important subject in the study of the engineering design process. Through analysis using a previously presented framework and coding scheme, this study presents two studies on creative designer behavior within later design stages. Through the studies, one being longitudinal and the other a laboratory experiment, two creative approaches have been identified based on whether designers are more often creative when developing the knowledge and variables available for the design or the design output itself. This individual difference correlates significantly with the designers' creative style as measured by an independent creative style test. These data demonstrate the variation in designer behavior that appears even when completing identical tasks. By understanding the creative behavior and approaches followed by designers, it will be possible to develop specific and particularly appropriate methods of designer support, dependent on the stage of the design process and particular approach of the designer.

Keywords::

• creativity
• design
• behavior
• embodiment
• detail

Acknowledgements

The work reported in this paper has been undertaken with support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's (EPSRC) Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre (IdMRC) at the University of Bath (grant reference EP/E00184X/1).