Ideate independently, or in group?

Brainstorming, as a group creative technique to encourage new ideas and solutions for simplified and specific problems was popularised by Alex Osbon (1888-1966), a US advertising executive. The method has since gone through many iterations also inspiring creative alternatives. The ideation-workshop, which is multi-tool and not just word-based, is not a group brainstorming activity. This is because the workshop lets the participants generate ideas independently before sharing the ideas in group. In other words, let ideators work alone first. There is good reason for this approach because there is little evidence for the idea that brainstorming produces more or better ideas than the same number of individuals would produce working independently. This argument is also advanced by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an organisational psychologist, and further based on a meta-analytic review of over 800 teams indicated that individuals are more likely to generate a higher number of original ideas when they don’t interact with others*. Accordingly, brainstorming is particularly likely to harm productivity in large teams, when teams are closely supervised, and when performance is oral rather than written. Another problem is that teams tend to give up when they notice that their efforts aren’t producing very much. But why doesn’t brainstorming work? There are, according to the review, four explanations:1. Social loafing: There’s a tendency – also known as free riding – for people to make less of an effort when they are working in teams than alone. 2. Social anxiety: People worry about other team members’ views of their ideas. This is also referred to as evaluation apprehension. This is especially problematic for introverted and less confident individuals.3. Regression to the mean: This is the process of downward adjustment whereby the most talented group members end up matching the performance of their less talented counterparts (Osborn envisaged groups including both experts and novices). This effect is well known in sports – if you practice with someone less competent than you, your competence level declines and you sink to the mediocrity of your opponent. 4. Production blocking: Individuals can only express a single idea at one time if they want other group members to hear them. Studies have found that the number of suggestions plateaus with more than six or seven group members, and that the number of ideas per person declines as group size increases (Osborn envisioned groups of around 12 participants). Given brainstorming’s flaws, why is the practice so widely adopted? Well, concludes Chamorro-Premuzic, brainstorming continues to be used because it feels intuitively right to do so - but just don’t expect it to accomplish much, other than making your team feel good. * https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-group-brainstorming-is-a-waste-of-time

Prompts for ideas

There are many ways to get ideation started using conceptual tools, from words and sketching to modelling and computing, and where analogue and digital are intertwined. As to using words (natural language), development in artificial intelligence, AI, has advanced the early prompt tools such as Google Images, which allows users to search the web for images (since 2001) or reverse image search (since 2011). Here, users can simply click on the camera icon to upload an image and get started. But technology is advancing fast. With the emergence of generative text-to-image systems, such as Dall-e-2 or Stable Diffusion, written prompts, that is, short text descriptions are used to generate an image. In contrast, Chat GPT is a language-focused application of AI, and so doesn’t have the ability to create images with AI. Ideation tools, then, including AI, when there is fluidity between analogue and digital, between words and images, where pen and paper sketching mingles with computing, help elicit creativity and provide  inspiration in both familiar and novel ways. 

Situated ideation

Although the ideation workshop suggests a physical space, typically the studio, for generating and communicating ideas, the participants are free to roam for ideas because ideation is not only situated in the studio, but in many "other places". Interestingly, research involving professional writers and physicists, found that ideas generating during episodes of "mind wandering" were more likely to be associated with overcoming an impasse on a problem, compared with ideas generated while on task (i). However, mind wandering happens in studio enviroments too although perhaps more likely to be referred to as daydreaming also known in research terms as “positive constructive daydreaming (PCD),” where the mind is cast forward and imagine future possibilities in a creative way. But daydreaming has also been associated with a lapse of concentration, or "poor attention control", that is, where a person struggles to focus on a particular thought or task, particularly troublesome for those with attention deficits. Yet ideation suggests focused attention on the task at hand. Where, then, does this leave daydreaming as attributed to the stimulation of creativity, and the generating of ideas towards problem solving? Well, says cognitive psychologist Stefan Van der Stigchel: 'The next time you need a [brain] reset, go outside and let your mind wander. Who knows what might happen in your stream of consciousness.'(ii) - (i) Psychological Science, Volume 30 Issue 3, March 2019, pp 396-404; (ii) https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/daydreaming-and-concentration-what-the-science-says/

Thinginess of AI

Generative design software, both 2D and 3D, is increasingly overcoming its perceived lack of thinginess, the tangible reality or objectivity of the proposed design. Moreover, AI image generators are rapidly advancing producing artistic imagery based on text prompts, such as DALL-E 2. That is, the generator allows the ideator to type in a description of what they want, and the generator will create the image as close as possible to the prompt. Text-to-image AI art generators, then, can be regarded as another ideation tool to help generate, represent and communicate ideas. AI image generators, however, are only the latest development of generative design. CAD and CAM software already presents designers and engineers with an array of design options that best meet their requirements. That is, designers choose the best design, or, if none of the options meet their needs, they can begin the generative process again, this time offering slightly different inputs. The development of generative design software, then, reflects the changing form and character of the design process itself. This rapid change, however, may pose the question; what has been gained or lost in the technological evolution of designing not just in terms of skills, habits and modes of representation but also in our understanding of contemporary design culture, including teaching and learning design.

Habit of ideation

The ideation workshop reflects design as a thought, idea or plan as well as a hands-on practice. A process, or moment (or a series of moments) of choice and thoughtful decision-making that involves the making of design decisions which can range from size, shape, material and fabrication technique to colour and finish that establishes how an object is to be made. The object can be a city or a town, a building, a vehicle, a tool or any other object, a book, an advert or a stage set*. In this broad meaning of what design is, both as noun and verb, and when contextualised as a social and cultural activity, ideation can be regarded as habitus - a term borrowed from sociology. That is, socially-ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions through which individuals perceive the social world around them and react to it. These habits shape both the body and the mind and, according to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, relate to a sense of place that allows individuals to find new solutions without calculated deliberation, based on their gut feelings and intuitions. The ideation workshop also relates to a sense of place, a place that makes social and cultural space for creative problem solving and innovation. Such space making, then, shapes the habit of ideation - as part of design practice. *Pile, John (1979) Design: Purpose, Form and Meaning. NY: Norton and Company.

Experiencing ideation

The purpose of the workshop is to raise awareness of ideation tools in the design process. In this, the workshop gives designers the opportunity to explore a wide rage of ideation tools - from words to sketching and modelling - in order to help generate and communicate ideas. An agreed task or theme starts the ideation process in which the participants are encouraged to follow their creative impulse that goes  beyond educational tradition and normative interests. Through excursions into the realm of ideas, the participants try out and reflect on ideation tools that are not just a function of language or technology (analogue and/or/both digital) but tools that stimulate, and facilitate non-hierarchical and non-linear design thinking. Ideation tools that have, at least potential power of denuding the esthetic cloak of the everyday, or enabling ways of seeing beauty, or ugliness in mass-fabrication or consumption, where "good design" cohabits the market of "kitsch". The participants, then, having experienced the intoxicating faculty of ideation, reflect on the tools used and the outcomes created. In other words, they learn, and appreciate the ideation tools they most enjoy, and get the most from.

3D printed ideas

3D printers are now commonplace in design studios, both in practice and education - in the latter as an educational technology. Although 3DP technology is mainly used for prototyping (physical modelling) to demonstrate near-final projects, 3DP is also used for small-scale prototyping at the research or ideation stage of design (exploration models), or for ideas communication (presentation models). But how do outcomes of direct creation of objects from 3D computer-aided design files, when used as a conceptual tool compare to hand-made sketch modelling? Research has shown that 3DP for prototyping stimulates and faciltates more geometrically complex and accurate designs in comparison to traditional model-making methods. Howver, ideation is an iterative process and so, it is argued, there is a risk ideators may get locked in to a single idea at a too early stage of the design process when using CAD software and 3DP, which might restrict the creative development of ideas. Or, as observed by architect Peter Cook: 'I've noticed the computer sometimes lead to rather bland decision making; now anybody can do a wobbly, blobby building'. Yet contemporary design processes are increasingly technology-driven, knowledge-intensive and collaborative. And so ideators must remain openminded to new ways of doing and thinking and balancing these mindsets of converging and diverging. Source: Greenhalgh, S. (2016). The effects of 3D printing in design thinking and design education. Journal of Engineering Design and Technology 14(4):752-769