Michael Mose Biskjaer

A constraint-based understanding of design spaces

This paper suggests a framework for understanding and manoeuvring design spaces based on insights from research into creativity constraints. We define the design space as a conceptual space, which in addition to being co-constituted, explored and developed by the designer encompasses the creativity constraints governing the design process. While design spaces can be highly complex, our constraint-based understanding enables us to argue for the benefits of a systematic approach to mapping and manipulating aspects of the design space. We discuss how designers by means of a simple representation, a design space schema, can identify the properties of the prospective product that s/he can form. Through a case study, we show how design space schemas can support designers in various ways, including gaining an overview of the design process, documenting it, reflecting on it, and developing design concepts. Finally, we discuss the potentials and limitations of this approach.

Decisive constraints as a creative resource in interaction design

Abstract This article explores the observation that highly limiting, creative decisions of voluntary self-binding that radically prune the design solution space may in fact fuel and accelerate the process toward an innovative final design. To gain insight into this phenomenon, we propose the concept ‘decisive constraints’ based on a review of current, but dispersed, studies into creativity constraints. We build decisive constraints on two definitional conditions related to radical decision-making and creative turning points. To test our concept analytically and ensure its relevance to creative practice, we apply the two definitional conditions to three media façade installation projects in which our interaction design research lab has been involved. In accord with insights from these case analyses, we argue that decisive constraints may inform current research into design processes and act as a creative resource for practitioners, not only in interaction design but, we assume, also across related creative domains and disciplines.

Understanding Creativity Methods in Design

This paper contributes an analytical framework to improve understanding of the composition of recognized creativity methods used in design. Based on an extensive literature review, our framework synthesizes key concepts from design and particularly creativity research, and is further supported by significant experience with creativity methods in design. We propose that nine concepts are relevant for analyzing creativity methods in design: process structure, materials, tools, combination, metaphor, analogy, framing, divergence, and convergence. To test their relevance as components of an analytical framework, we use these key concepts to analyze three recognized creativity methods that we have often used ourselves: Inspiration Card Workshops, Fictional Inquiry, and Extreme Characters. Our analytical framework expands current categorizations of methods and offers new insight into how creativity methods are composed, how and why they work, and how they potentially may be tweaked or refined for enhanced deployment in design.

Taking action on distraction

4 8 I N T E R A C T I O N S N O V E M B E R – D E C E M B E R 2 016 Internet’s abundance of digital information—be it news, discussions, memes, music, videos—is alluring and may distract users is nothing new. However, adding to this type of distraction, a new type has emerged in which the user is rendered passive. This category is digital information as ubiquitous, instant notifications, reminders, alerts, and alarms that seemingly pop up out of the blue and demand the user’s attention during activities entirely unrelated to this information. In this scenario, we are no longer talking about Mark Weiser’s envisioned age of calm technology, in which ubiquitous computing gradually recedes into the background of our everyday life. Rather, we are talking Find a spartan room with a clear desk. Wear a pair of earplugs and over them noise-canceling, pink-noise-emitting headphones. Use a modified computer with no card for computer games and with the Ethernet port sealed to block Internet access. Now draw the curtains—and put on a blindfold. Then you have re-created what author Jonathan Franzen considered his distraction-free digital haven when he wrote his acclaimed novel The Corrections (2001). Extreme as this example may seem, it shows the lengths to which some individuals will go in order to fight what we consider an emerging trend in HCI: a significant increase in digital distractions. That the F Taking Action on Distraction Michael Mose Biskjaer, Peter Dalsgaard, and Kim Halskov, Aarhus University

Designing Digital Interactive Instructions for Children's Construction Play

Although digital interactive technology offers innovative, scarcely explored types of instruction, conventional analog paper booklets remain the main instruction format for childrens construction play. We examined how a fan-built, digital interactive instructions prototype affected childrens construction play compared to an analog booklet. We studied two LEGO building tasks among 20 eight-nine year-old boys. Ten used the prototype on an iPad, 10 the booklet. Using a quasi-experimental research design built on cognitive load theory, we found notable differences in the two construction play processes. Participants with the analog booklet had a faster, more fluent process, while the digital prototype group was more often distracted and seeking help. We propose basic design recommendations for digital interactive instructions for childrens construction play, i.e., include a rotational feature, animations, pace control, few buttons, and realistic colors.

Designing Interactive Systems to Support and Augment Creativity - A Roadmap for Research and Design

The aims of the workshop are to examine and discuss the current state of research in designing interactive systems to support and augment creative work, and to outline a roadmap for future research initiatives. The workshop will explore methodological issues and approaches, overarching trends and developments, exemplary cases, and future initiatives to study and design systems and tools to augment creative practices. Participation in the workshop requires participants to contribute with a position paper on one of the above topics, and to read and comment on co-participants contributions before the workshop.

Why HCI and Creativity Research Must Collaborate to Develop New Creativity Support Tools

Digital creativity support tools (CST) are an integrated part of many professions in the creative industries. While CST play a central role in the daily practices of creative professionals, we have limited understanding of how these tools affect the creative process. This lack is problematic, as the need for designing new CST to help leverage societal challenges continues to grow. Part of the reason for our scarce understanding of CST is an untapped potential for collaboration between two research communities whose joint effort is key to increasing our understanding of the role and nature of CST in creative practices. We review seminal work from creativity-oriented Human-Computer Interaction research (HCI) and psychology-based Creativity Research (CR) to demonstrate a discrepancy between a) HCIs insight into CST practices and technologies, but rather limited awareness of current relevant studies in CR, and, conversely, b) CRs long expertise in psychological studies of creative processes and cognition, but rather limited insight into CST technologies and practices. To help enable mutually complementary collaboration between the two disciplines, we propose four CST-based research initiatives: integration and development of theory, adaptation and development of methods, collection of exemplars and cases, and prototyping of novel CST. We discuss these initiatives in the light of trends in the two research communities, we and suggest potential next steps.

Constraints and Ambiguity: Some Design Strategies for Supporting Small-scale Creativity in the Classroom

Developing creative abilities is an important part of 21st century skills, and yet remains challenging. In this paper1 we describe a study investigating small-scale creative strategies that groups of Scandinavian high school students use when collaboratively building LEGO models. We recorded thirty groups of students building three models each. We studied groups building with traditional plastic bricks and also using a digital environment. The building tasks students undertake, and our subsequent analysis, are informed by the role constraints and ambiguity play in creative processes. Based on the insights we gained, we present three strategies for designing tools and environments that support students as they develop creative skills. These strategies relate to: tools and materials, mutual learning, and reflection.