School of Communication and Culture

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.