Creativity in Design_Cross

7/28/2019 Creativity in Design_Cross

1/8

Leonardo

Creativity in Design: Analyzing and Modeling the Creative LeapAuthor(s): Nigel CrossReviewed work(s):Source: Leonardo, Vol. 30, No. 4 (1997), pp. 311-317Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576478 .

Accessed: 26/02/2013 14:24

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The MIT Press andLeonardo are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Leonardo.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpresshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1576478?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1576478?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress


2/8

CREATIVITY AND COGNITION CONFERENCE PAPER

Creativity i n D e s i g n : Analyzing a n dModeling t h e Creative L e a p

NigelCross

CREATIVEDESIGNSignificant innovations or novel design concepts are oftenreported as arising from sudden illuminations, or "creativeleaps."Such creative leaps have for some time been regardedas central to the design process [1]. In some fields, the cre-ative leap is characterized as the sudden perception of a com-pletely new viewpoint on a situation. This is the basis ofKoestler's model of "bi-sociation"to explain creative insight[2]. In creative design, however, a creative leap does not nec-essarily require a radical shift of viewpoint. There might notbe a transfer to a new "space",but merely a shift to a new partof the solution space and the "finding"there of an appropri-ate concept. This is what characterizes creative design as ex-ploration, rather than search. Unlike bi-sociation, creativedesign does not necessarily consist of the making of a suddencontrary proposal, but the making of an apposite proposal.Once the proposal is made, it is seen to be an apposite re-sponse to the given, explored problem situation. It creates amatch between the design requirements and the design struc-ture of a potential new product. The sudden illuminationthat occurs in creative design is therefore more like buildinga "creativebridge" than taking a creative leap.

AN EXAMPLE OF CREATIVITY IN DESIGNI observed an example of creative insight occurring in a de-sign context in a protocol analysisstudy used at the Delft De-sign Protocols Workshop in 1994 [3]. The workshop wasbased on a set of analyses made by different researchersaround the world using pre-recorded videotapes and tran-scripts of experimental design sessions. Two such experimen-tal sessions were used in the Delft Workshop-one using the"think-aloud" protocols of an individual designer and theother using the naturally occurring interactions of a smallteam of three designers. The same hypothetical design prob-lem was given to both the individual designer and the team:the design of a carrying/fastening device for mounting andtransporting a hiker's backpack on a mountain bicycle. Thisdevice would be something like a special bicycle luggage rack.The designers were aware that the design exercise was an ex-periment and that they were being recorded.

Nigel Cross (educator), Department of Design and Innovation, Faculty of Technology,The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. E-mail:.This article is based on a paper presented at the Second International Creativity andCognition Symposium, which was held at the Loughborough University andLoughborough College of Art and Design from 28 April to 2 May 1996.

A creative leap seems to haveoccurred as a sudden illumina-tion in the team's design processat a point when one of the teammembers, Designer J, suggestedthe following design concept:"Maybe it's like a little vacuum-formed tray."The tray idea wasquickly taken up by the team, andthe other members collaboratedin developing the concept into afully fledged design. The result-ing design is shown in Fig. 1.The creative leap occurred at

ABSTRACT

Thesuddennsightrovidedbya "creativeeap"swidelye-gardedsacharacteristiceatureof creativeesign. n xamplefsuch creativeeap ccurredur-ingarecordedtudyftheactivityofa small esigneam. everalif-ferentnalysesftherecordede-sign ctivity ade y ndependentresearchersonfirmhecriticalrole fthis reativeeapn hede-signprocess f he eam.The u-thor eviewsome enericescrip-tivemodelsfcreativeesignorinsightnto hedesigneam tudyanddiscussesssues or hecom-putationalodelingfcreativee-signbased n heseobservations.It ssuggestedhat reativensightindesignhoulderegardedsaperceptualridge-buildingetweenproblemnd olution,atherhanleap.

about 1 hour 18 minutes into the 2-hour design session. It wasthe first time a tray had been mentioned, and it seemed toprovide an immediate focus for the team, whose membersbegan to evaluate the concept in a constructive way, identify-ing the positive features that such a concept embodied rela-tive to the required design features and developing the de-tailed aspects of the concept. The tray concept seemed tocome out of nowhere after a lengthy period of explorationand problem analysis. It provided a pivotal point in the de-sign process, after which the team focused on developing thisconcept into a design proposal.The team's approach to the given taskwasa relatively ratio-nal and systematic one. Veryearlyin the session they planneda design strategy (Fig. 2) that was a variation of a conven-

Fig. 1.The team's concept design.

LaCt l14fC< URErMTUPtt

LEONARDO, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 311-317, 1997 311

I

? 1997 ISAST

This content downloaded on Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:24:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

salto

repentina

cambio

adecuada
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/8

- 20 -5

. frc /*

i~~~i~~ ~~ r~~

This content downloaded on Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:24:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

asistida


6/8

for example, earlier references to flat,plastic devices-are not shown in thisparticular, limited section of the full ses-sion.) Its importance, however, is clearin the relatively high number of "fore-links"it has-i.e. subsequent statementsthat build onto, or refer back to, thisstatement.

Fig.2 -l r o i

Fig. 12. Possible inference of design from first principles.

EXPLANATORY MODELS OFCREATIVE DESIGNAttempts at understanding and promot-ing creative thinking in design generallyfocus on a number of techniques andprocedures that utilize either free-asso-ciation thinking, such as brainstorming[10], or forced associations, such assynectics [11]. A number of explanatorymodels of creative design have also beendeveloped through research in artificialintelligence. For example, Rosenmanand Gero [12] suggested four proce-dures bywhich creative design might oc-cur: combination, mutation, analogyand design from first principles (Fig. 7).Another creative design procedure withsimilar potential was later added to thislist by Gero [13]: emergence (Fig. 8).These procedures are widely accepted asuseful explanatory models of creativedesign both within and outside the arti-ficial intelligence community.

CombinationCreative design can occur when featuresfrom existing designs are combined intonew configurations. In my example ofthe tray idea, relevant concepts in theteam's discussion preceding the creativeleap were those of a flat plastic paneland a bag. It seems possible that the cre-ative leap occurred when "panel" and"bag"were combined, resulting in "tray"(Fig. 9). In this case, the tray was not anew kind of artifact (traysalready exist),but the combination of "panel" and"bag" n the designer's mind could havebeen associated with "tray," s suggestedin Fig. 9. In terms of the team's designprocess at that particular point, traywasa novel concept.A more novel concept might havearisen from the combination of "panel"and "bag," for example, a bag with aflexible upper part and a rigid, flatpanel bottom part (again, such artifactsdo already exist). In fact, the team mem-bers did go on to propose novel combi-nations of "panel" and "bag."Immedi-ately after the initial acceptance of thetrayidea, Designer I articulated the con-cept of a net-like zippered container,

whichJ developed into "atraywith a netand a drawstring"and which K furtherdeveloped into a net as something like aretractable window blind:

I:What f yourbagwerebig, or,what fyour, if this traywere not plastic, butlike a big net, you just sort of likepulled it around and zipped there, Idon'tknow.J: Maybe t could be a part, maybeitcould be a traywith a net and a draw-stringon the top of it, I like that,that'sa cool idea.I: A traywith sort ofjust hangingdownnet, you can pull it around and zip itclosed.K: It could be like a windowshade, soyoucan kindof, it sinksback n.I: It retracts, eah.K Youpull down, t retracts n.J:A retracting hade.In this sequence of the team's dia-

logue, we can see how the initial idea of"panel + bag = tray"could develop into"bag + tray," eading to an original con-cept of a traywith some form of retract-able, net-bag container. The resultingdevice might have been a more creativecombination of "panel + bag" than thetray concept. In the end, the team didnot develop the retractable net-bag idea,but added cross-overstraps to the trayasa means of constraining the backpack.The team seemed to know how far topursue novel combinations before with-drawing to reconsider and start anotherline of reasoning. In the development ofcomputational systems for design, itwould be difficult to know how to set

aFig. 13. Possible in-ference of emer-gent concept fromprevious represen-tations.

such a limit-how does a system recog-nize that a satisfactory or more-than-sat-isfactory concept has been created fromcombinations of previous concepts?MutationCreative design by mutation involvesmodifying the form of some particularfeature or features of an existing design.In our example, a mutation might havehappened, transforming a flat panelinto a tray (Fig. 10). If Designer J wasthinking about the inadequacies of a flatpanel (e.g. it does not securely containthe backpack), he could have thought ofputting a raised lip around the edges ofthe panel, giving rise to the concept of atray. Designer K's early sketch (see be-low, Fig. 13) also might have been influ-ential in suggesting such a mutation. Wedo not know what cognitive processesgave rise to J's creative leap, but it doesseem that a mutation procedure couldhave generated the tray idea from theflat panel idea.The difficulty for computational sys-tems for design would be identifyingwhich structural features of the existingdesign to select for modification and de-termining which kinds of modificationto apply. In this case, to reproduce "flatpanel - tray," t would have been neces-sary to identify the panel edges as rel-evant features and modify them by thick-ening and/or extending them beyondthe surface plane of the existing design.It would have been necessary for the

N.A

b

Cross, Creativity in Design 315This content downloaded on Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:24:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions


7/8

Overall problem) < ( Overall olution

(Sub- problems (Sub- solutions )

mutation procedure to be based on rec-ognition that a flat panel would be inad-equate for containment.AnalogyThe use of analogical thinking has longbeen regarded and suggested as a basisfor creative design. We have alreadyseen, in the extract above, how the ideaof a window shade was used to help de-scribe (if not necessarily to generate) aconcept of a retractable net-bag. Thetray idea seemed to have originated inclose association with the bag idea. De-signer J said, "So it's either a bag ormaybe it's like a little vacuum-formedtray,kind of, for it to sit in," which sug-gests that he thinks of a tray as a viablealternative to a bag. This strongly sug-gests the analogue "bag= tray" Fig. 11),based on the idea that a bag is meant toenclose and carrysomething.The difficulty in computational mod-eling based on analogy is that the appro-priate behavioral features of an existingdesign must be abstracted. In this ex-ample, the behavioral features of enclos-ing and carrying were apparently se-lected as relevant, while other behaviorssuch as flexibility were not. Further-more, it would seem that partial enclo-sure (such as in a tray) was chosen asmore relevant than full enclosure (as ina bag)-about 20 minutes before thetrayideaJ suggested, "Maybe t's a littlebucket that it sits in," but this idea wasignored by the rest of the team and ap-parently soon forgotten. A "bucket" ismore bag-like than a tray is, but thebucket analogy was apparently notdeemed to be appropriate.First PrinciplesDesigning from "firstprinciples" is oftenadvocated as a way of generating goodand/or creative designs [14]. Firstprin-ciples are fundamental facts or theoriesthat supposedly, if followed rigorously,can lead to a functional solution con-cept. The difficulties for both artificialand natural design processes are inidentifying exactly what the first prin-ciples may be in any design situationand how they may be used to generate

Fig. 14. Model ofthe symmetrical re-lationship betweendesign problem anddesign solution,from Cross.

design concepts. The example given byRosenman and Gero [15] is the designof the novel "balance" chair from thefirst principles of the ergonomics of sit-ting posture, such as correct support forthe spine and buttocks. But what are thefirst principles for a carrying/fasteningdevice for mounting and transporting ahiker's backpack on a mountain bicycle?What may be an attempt at designfrom first principles appears in DesignerK's sketch produced early in the team'ssession (shown on the left-hand side ofFig. 12). K may have made this sketch of"backpack + accessory + bicycle" as a per-sonal attempt to represent the designproblem-she did not show the sketchto the rest of the team, and it played noovert role in the design process. How-ever,it mayexpress the firstprinciples ofthe design problem and may embody atray-like solution concept. Designer Klater sketched such a solution concept,as discussed below.

Designing from first principles is atthe core of any significant understand-ing of design-it assumes the theoreticalposition that designing starts with iden-tifying requirements, or desired func-tions, and moving from these to appro-priate forms or structures. It is theabductive leap of reasoning from func-tion to form that is regarded as the ker-nel of design [16]. But in practice, aswas seen in the design team's protocolsand has been suggested by others [17],designers start by suggesting "proto-models" of forms or structures andevaluate these in order to amplify therequirements or desired functions.

EmergenceEmergence is the process by which new,previously unrecognized properties are

Fig. 15. The duck-rabbit perceptual puzzle.

perceived as lying within an existing de-sign. Within the artificial intelligencecommunity, emergence has been dis-cussed mainly in reference to the recog-nition of emergent, or extensional,shapes within original, intentionalshapes. These may be categorized emer-gent structures. However, Gero haspointed out the importance of consider-ing functional and behavioral propertiesas well as structure in designs [18]. Itseems that designers do recognize emer-gent behaviors and emergent functions,as well as emergent structures, whenconsidering solution concepts. For ex-ample, DesignerJ pointed out the emer-gent behavioral property of protectionfrom rooster tail spray in the tray as afurther benefit of the concept.In our example, it is difficult to knowwhether the trayidea occurred as a caseof emergence. In this context, it is inter-esting that Designer K had made asketch quite early in the session (ataround 40 minutes) of what could be adesign proposal with a strong resem-blance to a tray (Fig. 13a). As with herpossible "firstprinciples" sketch above,Kdid not offer this second sketch to theteam; she made the sketch while theother two team members were engagedin another activity. However, the othertwo designers certainly became awareofthe sketch later, because they both usedit (at around 60 minutes) and addedsome additional features to it: DesignerJ drew some adjustable stays onto thedrawing,and Designer I drew the wheelsof a fold-down trailer onto it. Designer Ihad just previously sketched the trailerconcept (Fig. 13b).One could speculate that the trayemerged as a structure from either De-signer K's sketch or from the previouslysketched trailer concept. However, thereis no real evidence for this. If there hadbeen such evidence, the emergence pro-cedure would have been one of recog-nizing the box-like structures in thesketches and converting them to a shal-low box-i.e. a tray. In anything otherthan two-dimensional graphic or deco-rative design, recognizing emergence isnot simply a matter of shape recogni-tion. It involves recognizing emergentbehavior out of structure and/or emer-gent function out of behavior.

DISCUSSIONModels of the design process often sug-gest that designing should proceed in asequence of stages, such as the stageprocess adopted by the team studied

316 Cross,Creativity in DesignThis content downloaded on Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:24:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

proponer

ubicadas en


8/8

here. Such models also suggest that theoverall problem should be decomposedinto sub-problems, and then sub-solu-tions found and combined into an over-all solution. This is what the team at-tempted. However, as was seen in thisstudy, exploration and identification ofthe complex network of sub-problems isin practice often pursued by consideringpossible sub-solutions.

In practice, creative designing seemsto proceed by oscillating between sub-solution and sub-problem areas, as wellas by decomposing the problem and bycombining sub-solutions. This practicecorresponds to the explanatory model Ihave proposed (Fig. 14) [19]. The ex-ample in this study illustrates how cre-ative design is manifested in the cre-ation of an apposite concept. Theappositional nature of design reasoninghas been neglected in most descriptivemodels of the design process.

During the design process, partialmodels of the problem and solution areconstructed side by side, as it were. Thecrucial factor is the bridging of thesetwo partial models by the articulation ofan apposite concept (the tray idea inthis example) that enables the modelsto be mapped onto each other. The cre-ative leap is not so much a leap acrossthe chasm between analysis and synthe-sis as it is the building of a bridge acrossthe chasm between problem and solu-tion. The bridge recognizably embodiessatisfactory relationships between prob-lem and solution. It is the recognition ofa satisfactorybridging concept that pro-vides the illumination of the creativeflash of insight.

This recognition is a perceptual act bythe designer (and by colleagues, as inthis example of teamwork); and ourknowledge of perceptual puzzles canprovide analogies of the process. For ex-ample, the recognition of a proposeddesign concept as embodying bothproblem and solution together may beregarded as something like the well-known duck-rabbitpuzzle (Fig. 15); it isneither one nor the other, but a combi-nation that resolves both together andallows either to be focused upon. Sug-gesting that "Maybe t's a little vacuum-formed tray" is rather like saying,"Maybe t's a duck-rabbit."AcknowledgmentsThis paper is based on data from the Delft DesignProtocols Workshop, 1994, organized by KeesDorst, Henri Christiaans and Nigel Cross at DelftUniversity of Technology, in association with SteveHarrison and Scott Minneman of Xerox Palo AltoResearch Center (PARC).The workshop was madepossible by the financial, practical and moral sup-port provided by the faculty of Industrial DesignEngineering of Delft University of Technology,Xerox PARCand the Engineering Design Center ofStanford University. Above all, gratitude is due tothe anonymous designers who willingly partici-pated in the experiments, provided their time andtalent free of charge and allowed their design activ-ity to be analyzed in this way.

References1. L.B. Archer, "SystematicMethod for Designers,"the Design Council, London, U.K. (1965). Re-printed in N. Cross, ed., Developmentsn DesignMeth-odology Chichester, U.K.:Wiley and Sons, 1984).2. A. Koestler, The Act of Creation (London:Hutchinson, 1964).3. N. Cross, H. Christiaans and K. Dorst, eds.,Analysing Design Activity (Chichester, U.K.: Wileyand Sons, 1996).4. N. Cross, EngineeringDesignMethods:Strategiesor

ProductDesign (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley and Sons,1994).5. N. Cross and A. ClayburnCross,"ObservationsofTeamwork and Social Processes in Design," DesignStudies16, No. 2, 143-170 (1995).6.J. Gunther, E. Frankenberger and P.Auer, "Inves-tigation of Individual and Team Design Processesin Mechanical Engineering," in Cross et al. [3].7. M. Mazijoglou, S. Scrivener and S. Clark,"Repre-senting DesignWorkspaceActivity,"n Cross et al. [3].8. D. Radcliffe, "Concurrencyof Actions, Ideas andKnowledge Displays Within a Design Team," inCross et al. [3].9. Goldschmidt, "The Designer as a Team of One,"in Cross et al. [3].10. A. Osborn, Applied Imagination (New York:Scribner's, 1963).11. W.J.Gordon, Synectics:TheDevelopmentfCreativeCapacity New York:Harper, 1961).12. M. Rosenman andJ. Gero, "Creativity n DesignUsing a Design Prototype Approach," in J. Geroand M.L. Maher,eds., ModelingCreativity nd Knowl-edge-BasedCreativeDesign (Hillsdale, NJ: LawrenceErlbaum Associates, 1993).13.J. Gero, "Computational Models of Creative De-sign Processes," in T. Dartnall, ed., ArtificialIntelli-genceand Creativity Dordrecht, the Netherlands:Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994).14. M. French, Invention and Evolution: Design inNature and Engineering (Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-bridge Univ. Press, 1994).15. Rosenman and Gero [12].16. N. Roozenberg, "On the Pattern of Reasoning inInnovative Design," Design Studies14, No. 1, 4-18(1993).17. L. March, "The Logic of Design and the Ques-tion of Value," in L. March, ed. TheArchitectureofForm (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press,1976).18. J. Gero, "Design Prototypes: A Knowledge Rep-resentation Schema for Design," AI Magazine 11,No. 4, 26-36 (1990).19. Cross [4].

Cross,Creativity in Design 317This content downloaded on Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:24:51 PM

All bj JSTOR T d C di i

abismo

Date post:	03-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	dario-sandrone
View:	215 times
Download:	0 times

Creativity in Design_Cross

Documents