Inspiring design ideas with texts

A design is said to be as successful as the leading idea that drives it is. Mature designers make frequent use of 'stock ideas' accumulated over time and stored in memory and personal archives. Novices do not yet possess developed collections of sources that can be tapped. In this study it was hypothesized that stimuli in the form of texts presented to student-designers along with a design problem, would improve the quality of their design solution. Results show that text-stimuli yield designs that receive higher originality grades compared to a no-stimulus condition, but practicality is not affected. We propose that textual stimuli may be useful as part of the design process and as a pedagogical tool in the design studio. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.