Studying Creativity in Digitalised Contexts

TY - ABST

T1 - Studying Creativity in Digitalised Contexts

AU - Frich Pedersen, Jonas

AU - Biskjaer, Michael Mose

AU - Dalsgaard, Peter

N1 - Conference code: 5th

PY - 2021/7

Y1 - 2021/7

N2 - Amabile’s acclaimed work ‘Creativity in Context’ (1996) examines the influence of social context on foundational factors of creativity, such as motivation, personal skills and thinking styles. Since its publication, digitalisation has arguably been the single most dominant trend in creative work. Much creative work is now carried out using digital tools, and creative collaboration is increasingly distributed and mediated via digital services. In other words, the context of creativity has changed, and we need approaches that can help us better understand and examine creative work in this digitalised context. Researchers in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have been studying how humans realise a variety of activities by interacting with computers and software since the 1980s. However, while the topic of creativity has recently gained significant interest in this research community, focus is too often on building novel tools, and testing them in contrived settings.We propose to build on insights from HCI to provide directions for creativity research in line with the three themes of the MIC conference: observation, assessment and estimation. Firstly, we posit that we need to develop more focused approaches to observing creativity in digitalised contexts, which includes the role and nature of digital tools. Secondly, that much could be gained from developing a heuristic for assessing digital creativity support tools based on existing creativity research. Thirdly, that better understanding of the affordances and constraints in digital creativity support tools may help us better estimate the impact that such tools may have on creative processes.

AB - Amabile’s acclaimed work ‘Creativity in Context’ (1996) examines the influence of social context on foundational factors of creativity, such as motivation, personal skills and thinking styles. Since its publication, digitalisation has arguably been the single most dominant trend in creative work. Much creative work is now carried out using digital tools, and creative collaboration is increasingly distributed and mediated via digital services. In other words, the context of creativity has changed, and we need approaches that can help us better understand and examine creative work in this digitalised context. Researchers in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have been studying how humans realise a variety of activities by interacting with computers and software since the 1980s. However, while the topic of creativity has recently gained significant interest in this research community, focus is too often on building novel tools, and testing them in contrived settings.We propose to build on insights from HCI to provide directions for creativity research in line with the three themes of the MIC conference: observation, assessment and estimation. Firstly, we posit that we need to develop more focused approaches to observing creativity in digitalised contexts, which includes the role and nature of digital tools. Secondly, that much could be gained from developing a heuristic for assessing digital creativity support tools based on existing creativity research. Thirdly, that better understanding of the affordances and constraints in digital creativity support tools may help us better estimate the impact that such tools may have on creative processes.

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - Marconi Institute for Creativity Conference (MIC'2021)

Y2 - 8 September 2021 through 10 September 2021

ER -