Design methods and creativity

Abstract
Thomas Edison, by stating the famous quote genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, put
for the first time great emphasis on the stages of planning, design, experimenting and testing that
constitute a creative process, which was consequently not merely reduced to a fortuitous spark of
light. In particular, the pressing demand for innovation in order for enterprises to enhance
competitiveness and profitability has arisen the urge to optimize and speed up the creative process,
which can no longer rely solely on occasional enlightenment. In this context many thinking
techniques and design methods have been proposed as aiding tools, but simultaneously to their
expansion, debates over their effectiveness in fostering creativity have emerged. Aim of this paper
is, therefore, to give an overview of the main applications of these procedures, highlighting their
contributions to the different stages of the design process and describing to what extent they come
in help to designers to stimulate their productivity.

The origins of design methods trace back to the post-war era, heavily influenced by the typical
procedures of operational research and decision theory , whose development as disciplines
embodied the necessity of formal approaches to tackle the growing complexity of modern projects.
The challenge was taken up in the 60s by the British pioneers Bruce Archer and John Chris Jones,
who founded the Design methods movement, with the aim to apply scientific rigor to the design
activity. In order to accomplish it they elaborated an articulated methodology based on the
awareness that intuitive and irrational aspects of thought are driving forces in design as well as
logical and systematic procedures. The underlying idea of these methods is to provide techniques
for tracking data and information so as to release the designers mind, which is free to generate
random and creative insights. Rather than just describing the different stages that lead to the final
solution, Jones suggested an algorithmic structure to follow, i.e. a prescriptive model that he
presented as a guided path, providing guidelines and frameworks to organize the work. Under this
normative point of view, the design process is interpreted as one of rational decision making, where
the designer explores the domain of all possible alternatives until the best one to realize is chosen
and, according to Jones, it is fully described by the paradigm analysis-synthesis-evaluation.
Before rushing into the production of ideas, a global comprehension of the task under consideration
turns out to be necessary; indeed poorly specified user requirements are one of the most significant
factors behind project failures. Understanding the specifications that the final product should meet,
the expectation set by the end user and the constraints, together with resolving conflicts between
needs that may arise, provides an early input to the development of the product as well as
facilitating the evaluation of the impacts following a requirements change in the running and the
final overall assessment. It, therefore, implies a proper identification of the stakeholders involved,
i.e. the set of all people or organizations that carry an interest towards the product, that can be
affected by it directly or indirectly. The gathering of the data may be fulfilled by gleaning
information from the users and the stakeholders through interviews and surveys, or by a team of

developers which can perform brainstorming processes, field studies and task analysis with the
formulation of usability goals and overall design criteria, arranged in a clear and understandable
manner. This preliminary step is of great help for both expert designers and beginner ones since it
allows them to quickly review the early concepts they have come up with, discarding the
inappropriate ones in view of the shared considerations previously made, thus letting them to put all
their creative effort in finding the ways and means to achieve a satisfactory solution.
After the proper definition of the designing context, the generation phase takes place and in
support of this activity, many tools have been developed throughout the years to enhance and
command at the same time the idea proliferation. Even if the designers have already identified a
possible solution, it is extremely useful to decompose the task into smaller components, each of
them addressing a specific issue: to this end, building a chart, that connects consequentially all the
elements pointed out, allows to have a comprehensive visualisation of the problem with all the
underlying aspects, which may have been overlooked by a too coarse analysis.
The following step concerns the so called divergent thinking process, which leads to the
formulation ,for each of the topics, of a wide range of ideas obtained by exploring all the possible
alternatives. Indeed, there is a common theme in innovation literature that exploitable ideas are
found by having a lot of proposals: one of the reasons is given by the fact that with few options
they can all look reasonable, while with a broad number of them it is easier to see the spectrum of
choices and evaluate them. This ideation session, inside the structured design process, is regarded
by many as one where creativity finds full expression; in this sense, complete freedom is left to the
designers who can come up with anything they have in mind without questioning its feasibility and
sustainability in order not to halt the stream of ideas. However, this activity is demonstrated, by
various studies carried on the argument, to yield satisfactory results when conducted in groups,
where each member can contribute in a constructive way thanks to the multiplicity of points of
view. Along with plain brainstorming, other tools come in aid to give hints in the cases where the
requirements set represent a too rigid restriction, resulting in contradictions, i.e. incompatibilities
that arise between two or more design parameters, which may inhibit the designers or block them
from moving forward. The TRIZ method, whose Russian acronym stands for Theory of Inventive
Problem Solving, was developed in the URSS during the era 1946-1985 by Genrich Altshuller and
relies on the studies of the patterns of problem and solutions, following the hypothesis that
somebody, sometime, somewhere has already solved your problem or one similar to it. In this
context, creativity is no longer related to originality and spontaneity, but it is rather interpreted as
the ability to find, among all the listed proposals, the most suitable one and adapt it to the current
problem. In order to successfully take advantage from it, every contradiction emerged must be
classified, based on its nature, into technical and physical ones and for both the categories precise
elimination principles are available. While many have criticized the repeatability and predictability
that characterize the TRIZ method, considering it along the same lines as an instruction book
where the individuals intuition plays no role, it results, instead, to be utterly helpful since it offers
suggestions, which allow to tackle a problem from different perspectives, without supplying
straightaway with answers.
Having figured out the complete range of theoretically-potential approaches to all the basic subproblems, they can be combined together to build up the global and ultimate solution, selecting one
sub-solution at a time from each area. This procedure, executed as mentioned, leads to a large

number of possible combinations; nevertheless, only a small of them will constitute actually
feasible solutions, while the remaining ones will be discarded due to impracticability and
incompatibilities. In this case, creativity shows itself as the ability to order and combine elements in
an exhaustive and insightful way, realizing immediately those path guiding to unworkable solutions
and thus accelerating and facilitating the search. The last phase, through which the final proposal
will emerge, consists of the evaluation of the alternatives previously assembled and it is considered
merely as a rational one, since the choice is carried out by checking whether they fulfil the
requirements and attributing to them weighted scores in order to identify the best solution.
The design process, broken down in the way beforehand described, turns out to be more
approachable, in particular to less experienced designers, because it permits to tackle one issue at a
time, focusing on a limited topic, rather than randomly attempting to look for an all-round concept,
neglecting often critical aspects. Furthermore the recourse to design methods instils confidence as
the designer is not left alone in his job, being able to find guidance when lost, thus making him
more pro-active and inclined to be inspired. Also the experts may take advantage from their
employment, since, thanks to the expertise gathered, they can spot the most suitable method to use
to speed up the work and to overcome deadlocks. However, the founders of the Design Methods
Movements themselves, in the late 70s rejected the theses they developed, stating their dislike to
the machine language, the behaviourism, the continual attempt to fix the whole of life into a
logical framework. They recognized that all their efforts were drifting from the original intentions,
leading them to pretend to turn the creative process, whose irrational component cannot be denied,
into a deterministic one, by formulating systematic procedures, composed by instruction to follow,
which leave no room to improvisation . Even though other approaches have been introduced,
avoiding, when possible, the algorithmic structure, the debate over the presumed benefits they
generate is still current today. Certainly there may be designers who expect to get the answers by
implementing passively the methods, and therefore they are not able to complete their duty, but on
the other hand, those with the appropriate attitude, after having obtained familiarity with the
procedures, can adapt them to their needs, choosing the ones they are more comfortable with, to
handle with the most rational aspects of the design process so that they can put all their creative
verve on the right path, without getting lost.

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