The World Wide Web as a tool for creative design: Current issues and prospects for research

1. ACM Web Science 2013 Workshop on Creativity and attention in the age of the Web The World Wide Web as a tool for creative design: Current issues and prospects for research Julien Nelson & Todd LubartLaboratoire Adaptations Travail IndividusInstitut de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartesjulien.nelson@parisdescartes.fr

2. Research questions • Creativity • Design • The ability to produceworkthatisbothnoveland adaptedto taskconstraints (Lubart & Sternberg, 1999) • The processwherebysomethingunknownemergesfromwhatisknown(Hatchuel & Weil, 2003) • Firmsneed to be able to innovaterepeatedly and reliablyand to master the creative design process • World Wide Web technologyisoftenused in creative design • How can the Web support the creative design process ? • What are the underlyingresearch issues ? • Whatfurther web-based technologies canbeused to assistcreative design ?

3. How can the Web serve the creative design process ?A descriptive framework • Shneiderman’s(2000) genexframework (generator of excellence)

4. How can the Web serve the creative design process ?A descriptive framework • Creative design canbedescribed as a series of successive cycles of creative divergence (i.e.ideageneration) and creative convergence (i.e. ideaselection) Endproduct Designbrief Collecting information Creating and diffusing new ideas Relating to peers and mentors

5. How can the Web serve the creative design process ?A descriptive framework • The World Wide Web cantherefore serve as a tool for creative design in three major ways :

6. What are the underlyingresearch issues ?The Web as a source of creative inspiration • There is a strongresearchinterest in the inspirational practices of designers • Manysearchengines have been developed to provide designers with (primarilyvisual) sources of inspiration (e.g. Corbis, Gettyimages) • In addition, pieces of software and hardware have been designed to assist inspiration-gathering in designers Cabinet (Keller et al., 2009) TRENDS (Bouchard et al., 2008)

7. What are the underlyingresearch issues ?The Web as a source of creative inspiration • These interfaces canbeassessedfollowingtypical dimensions of usability and user experience (UX) • More recentstudies (e.g. Bonnardel & Zenasni, 2010) have focused on the impactof the images supplied by thesesystems on creative performance Cabinet (Keller et al., 2009) TRENDS (Bouchard et al., 2008)

8. What are the underlyingresearch issues ?The Web as a forum for creative design • Web-basedtechnology has led to the emergence of new types of design collectives, e.g. in the case of open-source software design • Manystudies have focused on the dynamics of communication and work in these collectives • The focus is on the interplaybetween the social roles of the members of these online collectives, the cognitive processesinvolved in creative design, and the exploration of virtualworkspaces

9. What are the underlyingresearch issues ?The Web as a forum for creative design • A strong focus on consensus generation and creative convergence (e.g. Sack et al., 2006), not on creative divergence • This seemsready to change, as somerecentstudies have taken an interest in the dynamics of online communities for social innovation (Pauliniet al., in press).

10. What are the underlyingresearch issues ?The Web as a means to generate and share design ideas • Historically, a strong focus on HCI and creative divergence with the work on ElectronicBrainStorming (EBS) • The goal of thesestudies : to assess the process gains and lossesrelated to « normal » brainstorming situations and to the use of electronicsystems, e.g. evaluationapprehension and social loafingvs. anonymity and social facilitation • Most systems are designed for synchronous interactions in small groups. Few systemsintegrate web connectivity.

11. Whatfurther web-based technologies couldbeused to support creative design? • The World Wide Web cantherefore serve as a tool for creative design in three major ways : • The nextstepforwardwouldbe to design innovative design toolsthatcanworkatseverallevels • We are currentlyinvolved in such a project

12. Whatfurther web-based technologies couldbeused to support creative design? • Project CREATIVENESS :CREativeAcTIvities in Virtual ENvironmEntSpaceS • A three-yearprojectfunded by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche • Threepartners : • LATI Université Paris Descartes • LCPI Arts et MetiersParisTech • PsyCLE Aix-Marseille Université • An experimentalstudy of the benefits of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) for creative design

13. Whatfurther web-based technologies couldbeused to support creative design? • We are working on one of the mostpopularMUVEs : Second Life • SL isverymuchcentered on creativity : itis possible for Residents to display, share, or sellvariouscreative productions • SL has already been envisioned as a tool for creativework(Ward & Sonnenborn, 2009 : Uribe & Cabra, 2010)

14. Whatfurther web-based technologies couldbeused to support creative design? • We are working on one of the mostpopularMUVEs : Second Life • SL isverymuchcentered on creativity : itis possible for Residents to display, share, or sellvariouscreative productions • SL has already been envisioned as a tool for creativework(Ward & Sonnenborn, 2009 : Uribe & Cabra, 2010)

15. Whatfurther web-based technologies couldbeused to support creative design? • In CREATIVENESS, we are carrying out a series of experimentalstudies in order to understand the effects on creative performance of variouspossibilitiesoffered by MUVEs : • Altering the characteristics of the virtualizedphysicalenvironment • Altering the characteristicsof avatars • Alteringgroup dynamics A work in progress

16. Thankyou for yourkind attention ! Julien.nelson@parisdescartes.fr