How Digital Tools Impact Convergent and Divergent Thinking in Design Ideation

TY - GEN

T1 - How Digital Tools Impact Convergent and Divergent Thinking in Design Ideation

AU - Frich Pedersen, Jonas

AU - Nouwens, Midas

AU - Halskov, Kim

AU - Dalsgaard, Peter

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Digital tools that support creative activities are ubiquitous in the design industry, yet practitioners appear to prefer pen and paper for design ideation. To better understand this exception, we conducted a comparative study between analog and digital tools and their impact on the divergent and convergent thinking patterns of groups of designers. We analysed how 24 participants solved comparable design ideation tasks in two conditions using linkographic protocol analysis - a notation method that focuses on identifying and linking small steps in the design process called moves. Our findings suggest that digital ideation tools yield more convergent thinking compared to analog tools, with no discernible impact on general productivity or divergent thinking.

AB - Digital tools that support creative activities are ubiquitous in the design industry, yet practitioners appear to prefer pen and paper for design ideation. To better understand this exception, we conducted a comparative study between analog and digital tools and their impact on the divergent and convergent thinking patterns of groups of designers. We analysed how 24 participants solved comparable design ideation tasks in two conditions using linkographic protocol analysis - a notation method that focuses on identifying and linking small steps in the design process called moves. Our findings suggest that digital ideation tools yield more convergent thinking compared to analog tools, with no discernible impact on general productivity or divergent thinking.

KW - Convergent thinking

KW - Creativity

KW - Creativity support tools

KW - Divergent thinking

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106683206&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3411764.3445062

DO - 10.1145/3411764.3445062

M3 - Article in proceedings

BT - CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

CY - New York

T2 - CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Y2 - 8 May 2021 through 13 May 2021

ER -