Realizing the Potential Effect of Interactable Concept Network for Idea Generation

Idea generation is the foundation of creativity and innovation, and learning various ideation methods, such as mind-map, scamper, etc. is a critical capability in a design-thinking course. With emerging technologies, many data-driven conceptual design tools exist to provide designers with external inspirational stimuli for ideation. Compared to traditional ideation methods, the data-driven conceptual tools are time-saving for gathering information, and labor-saving for generating numerous, various and creative ideas. Moreover, designers are able to avoid individually experiential limitation, which may cause the fixation of ideation. However, most data-driven conceptual tools are biased towards the industrial engineering field, and are too complicated to intuitively use for novice designers. Hence, this study established the user-friendly ideation tool named Interactable Concept Network (ICN) by integrating the mind-mapping method, semantic network database, and human cognitive process, additionally investigated its effects on novice designers learning of design-thinking courses. We assume that there is a potential effectiveness to assist and inspire novice designers to develop more creative concepts by applying ICN tool. With a pre-post-test design, a brief design course-long experiment as pre-test was then conducted with the mind-map method to evaluate the initial learning motivation and creativity. At this current study stage, the pre-test results revealed that the recognition and delivery errors caused by the handwritten and inaccurate description influenced the score of creativity.