Text Montage, a method for encouraging out-of-the-box thinking The design of a brainstorming groupware KOTOBA JAM

Abstract

This study proposes a new brainstorming method, Text Montage. The term “montage” refers to the famous experiment in film editing by Lev Kuleshov, who demonstrated the effect when people try to interpret the meaning from a pair of images subliminally. In the case of Text Montage, people can make leaps of imagination with neologisms (new phrases) generated in a pair of words. To verify the validity and usefulness of the method, we designed a novel brainstorming groupware KOTOBA JAM. In the usual brainstorming methods, participants find it difficult to come up ideas that are outside the box. KOTOBA JAM, originally a chat-bot system, generates completely unexpected neologisms by combining keywords of the discussed subject with randomly picked modifiers from various designed-modifier selections. The system keeps mumbling phrases as an additional participant in brainstorming sessions. In this study, we focused on the effect of the neologisms, which created in the method of Text Montage, on the activity of idea creation. To increase the probability of inspiration, we designed the neologism-generation system with a linguistic approach. We created a designed-modifier database, which consists of several types of modifiers based on Onomatopoeia, cartoon expression and the theory of inventive problem solving in engineering, TRIZ. We performed a usability testing to observe users’ reactions to each neologism generated by KOTOBA JAM. Then we attempted to discover which types of modifiers increase the possibility of new ideas for products or services. During the usability testing, we discovered tendencies to create new ideas. 1.The modifiers based on TRIZ functioned effectively as a trigger of new ideas for both designers and general users (non-designers). 2. Designers can be inspired even by a randomly selected modifier from a language dictionary. 3.Onomatopoeia was helpful for general users who had limited brainstorming experiences.