Toward A Constraint-Oriented Pragmatist Understanding Of Design Creativity

TOWARD A CONSTRAINT-ORIENTED PRAGMATIST UNDERSTANDING OF DESIGN CREATIVITY

MICHAEL MOSE BISKJAER & PETER DALSGAARD CENTRE FOR ADVANCED VISUALISATION AND INTERACTION (CAVI)

PARTICIPATORY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CENTRE (PIT)

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

DENMARK

Philosophy

DESIGN CREATIVITY

PRAGMATISM CONSTRAINTS

Creativity��

Aesthetics

Interaction design

CASES

AARHUS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ARTS PARTICIPATORY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CENTRE

CENTRE FOR ADVANCED VISUALIZATION AND

INTERACTION(CAVI)

(PIT)

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN RESEARCH

PARTICIPATORY METHODS��

THE EMERGENCE AND TRANSFORMATION OF DESIGN CONCEPTS

MAPPING AND ANALYSING WHAT HAPPENS IN THE DESIGN PROCESS...

(Dalsgaard, Halskov & Nielsen 2008)

... AS WELL AS WHAT HAPPENS IN USE SITUATIONS

PRAGMATISM AND DESIGN CREATIVITY

Situation��

Inquiry ��

Transformation��

Technology

A situated and emergent process,��which is explorative and characterised by reciprocal interplay between the designer and the environment ...

��... with the aim of transforming the situation through new insights and/or interventions��... and in which the designer employs a range of tools and techniques; these resources are often an essential part of the process.

Philosophy

DESIGN CREATIVITY


Creativity��

Aesthetics

Interaction design

CASES

AT A GLANCE

CONSTRAINTS

featured in all creativity-related domains and disciplines -

from philosophy, art, management, political and social

sciences to psychology, sports, medicine, and engineering

design. Thus, no transparent cross-disciplinary terminology.

Latin: ‘constringere‘ meaning ‘to restrain, compress, bind or

press together’ (the freedictionary.com/constrain)

‘Constraints are limitations on action. They set boundaries on

solutions’ (Vandenbosch & Gallagher 2004: 198)��

‘Constraints on thinking do not merely constrain, but also

make certain thoughts - certain mental structures - possible’ (Boden 2004: 46; Onarheim & Wiltschnig 2010)

ETYMOLOGY

BASIC DEFINITION

DUAL NATURE: RESTRAINING AND

ENABLING…

RESEARCH IN GENERAL LACK OF COMMON TERMINOLOGY

‘Constraints’ encompass creative choices, preferences,

obstructions, hindrances, requirements, demands, desires,,

conventions, expectations, limitations, rules, inabilities, etc.

CONSTRAINTS AS INTEGRAL TO DESIGN

A growing interest in constraints, from engineering design to

more art-oriented practices: ‘Formally, all design can be

thought of as constraint satisfaction, and one might be

tempted to propose global constraint satisfaction as a

universal solution for design.’ (Chandrasekaran 1990: 65).

CONSTRAINTS IN CREATIVITY RESEARCH

Necessary that coming creativity research looks much closer

toward the entwinement of constraints and creative agency –

and from several angles (Kaufman and Sternberg 2010)

DESIGN RESEARCH

CREATIVITY RESEARCH

MAIN CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS ��TO CONSTRAINT TYPOLOGIES

Bryan Lawson: How Designers Think (2006) DESIGN and ARCHITECTURE

Patricia D. Stokes: Creativity from Constraints (2006) PSYCHOLOGY and ART

Jon Elster: Ulysses Unbound (2000) PHILOPSOPHY and ‘AESTHETICS’

‘CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS’ Our proposal for an arts and humanities-based, domain-general unifying descriptor to address how constraints are inherent in and both restrain and enable creative processes.

Beneficial constraints

Incidental

Intrinsic Hard ↔ soft

Imposed

Essential Self-imposed

Hard ↔ soft

Hard ↔ Soft

Adapted from Elster 2000.

A BASIC FORMALIZED CONSTRAINT TYPOLOGY FOR ANALYZING CREATIVE PROCESSES

AESTHETIC STRATEGIES OF ENABLING CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS��CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS ��IN AVANT-GARDE ART ��

UNDER-CONSTRAINED PROBLEMS

OVER-CONSTRAINED PROBLEMS

Poetry Engineering Filmmaking

Adapted from Stacey & Eckert 2000.

LEVERAGE THE POTENTIAL FOR

CREATIVITY

A CROSS-DOMAIN CONTINUUM OF CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS

SELF-IMPOSED CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS

POPULAR LITERATURE ��

ALLEGED METHODS FOR FOSTERING CREATIVITY

��BALANCING ��CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS ‘THE SWEET SPOT’ OF CREATIVITY

Onarheim & Biskjaer (in press).

CREATIVITY IN DESIGN ��

OR��

DESIGN CREATIVITY?

CREATIVITY IN DESIGN?

A topic understood in very diverse ways by several individual

conceptualizations. Addressed analytically and descriptively. (Askland, Ostwald & Williams 2010)

or

DESIGN CREATIVITY?

We understand ‘design’ as pertaining to a unique human

faculty for promoting intentional change and innovation

through exploration and reflection (Löwgren and Stolterman 2004).

Design is always culturally embedded. Thus, we argue that it is

profitably to inform design research proper by looking toward

the arts and humanities – both back and forward…

Philosophy

DESIGN CREATIVITY


Creativity��

Aesthetics

Interaction design

CASES

CONCLUSIONS

PRAGMATISM AND DESIGN CREATIVITY -  A well-established school of thought that has already inspired and informed studies of

the design process and design thinking

-  A nuanced and consistent conceptual framework that posits design creativity as an emergent, distributed, and technological phenomenon

CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS AND DESIGN CREATIVITY -  A pragmatist framework for cross-disciplinary analyses of design processes,

emphasizing the potential of proficient and innovative constraint management

-  Analytical insights into ways to scaffold concrete case-tested methods for optimization of design processes based on enabling self-imposed creativity constraints

-  A conceptual bridge for informing design studies with key cross-disciplinary findings

from the arts and humanities; findings based on pragmatist, exploratory case studies.

CONTACT

THANK YOU

Michael Mose Biskjaer

[email protected]

Peter Dalsgaard

[email protected]

Aarhus University, Denmark

Centre for Participatory IT (PIT)

www.cavi.dk

Centre for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI)

www.pit.au.dk

For references, please see proceedings

REFERENCES REFERENCES:

Askland, H.H., Ostwald, M., Williams, A. 2010. Changing

Conceptualisations of Creativity in Design, in Desire '10: Proceedings

of the first conference on Creativity and Innovation in Design, Aarhus,

Denmark, 4-11

Löwgren, J., Stolterman, E. 2004. Thoughtful Interaction Design: A

Design Perspective on Information Technology. The MIT Press,

Massachusetts, USA

Boden, M.A. 2004. The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. 2

Routledge, London; New York

Onarheim, B., Wiltschnig, S. 2010. Opening and Constraining:

Constraints and Their Role in Creative Processes, in Desire '10:

Proceedings of the first conference on Creativity and Innovation in

Design, Aarhus, Denmark, 83-89

Toward A Constraint-Oriented Pragmatist Understanding Of Design Creativity

Technology

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