Ideation Process Research Articles

Eksplorasi Desain Dasar (Nirmana) melalui Kombinasi Media Grafis Analog dan Digital: Suatu Penelitian Kelas/Studio

This article is based on a research aiming to contextualize the fundamental principles of art and design to current setting in which analog media are no longer chosen as the ultimate hardware/tools. It is important considering digital hardware becomes more and more prevalent even preferred by students, whereas analog tools are getting harder to obtain, expensive and less ecological friendly. The goal of this research is to produce method analysis and the creation of two-dimensional basic design through digital media (Camera) followed by conventional drawing tools, documented and conducted by the lecturers and the students. So far, almost 100% of the studies concerning basic design could only be found in foreign publications, with visual work examples that cannot be used freely in Indonesian local education due to copyright issue. Therefore, a literature study is conducted to examine the formal objects of this research which are the elements and fundamental principles in design, followed by ideation and visualization processes carried by the students in basic design classes through the semester. The visualization itself will integrate analog and digital media to generate the material objects of the research, which is a series of two dimensional design compositions. These compositions are then analyzed and classified to taxonomic category of fundamental principles of two-dimensional design as an integral part of teaching-learning process (self-evaluation class for future improvement).

Conversando con... Cruz y Ortiz

Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz got their degrees from the School of Architecture in Madrid in the early 70’s. From that moment on they have worked together in Seville, and since 2000 they also have a studio in Amsterdam.Their prolific work, awarded with almost 25 honors, has been the object of many exhibitions and publications. They have gained more than 20 prizes in architectural competitions, both national and international. They possess academic experience as professors in Schools in Seville, Zurich, Harvard, Cornell, Lausanne, Pamplona, and Columbia, and they both have given countless lectures all over the world.This interview was taken on a Wednesday evening in September 14th 2011. It focuses on the process of architectural graphic ideation, with questions formulated by the architect Antonio Gámiz Gordo, who also transcribed the answers. He is a former student-collaborator in their office in 1986, and nowadays is a Senior Lecturer at the Seville School of Architecture.

Technology Landscape Mapping: At the Heart of Open Innovation

OVERVIEW:Open innovation efforts traditionally focus on sourcing external solutions against known needs. This approach, while helping the organization to close gaps in internal capabilities, has only limited impact on ideation and strategy. A broader awareness of technology and market trends can itself become a powerful source of new and differentiating ideas. Because of this, a systematic process for building technology awareness and articulating and disseminating knowledge within the organization is critical for enabling a collaborative cross-functional ideation process. This can be accomplished through systematic, proactive scouting and technology landscape maps, which, for a given technology domain, identify technology drivers, critical technology attributes, related existing and emerging technologies with their commercial readiness levels, and the opportunity space enabled by these technologies. We are sharing a new framework, with associated processes and tools that we developed at Kennametal. This process addresses a broader set of objectives than targeted technology searches and is versatile enough to be applied to any technology domain.

Design processes in collective innovation communities: a study of communication

Despite the growing importance of collective intelligence, little is known about the design processes that lead to effective social innovation. A study of communication describes design process visualisations from three sites for collective innovation, in terms of their ability to structure and present design tasks and to situate design communication within the context of these tasks. Empirical data on design communication provide the basis for protocol studies on three project forums from a website for social product design. Mechanisms were identified which describe ways in which collective innovation produces successful solutions shaped by community input: (1) structuring design as a hybrid process, which combines online communities for design development and appointed experts or inbuilt system features for technical and organisational aspects; (2) providing distinct roles for users to assume and manageable tasks for them to perform; (3) clarifying task requirements; and (4) supporting social communication to strengthen the impact of ideas, with particular focus on the social processes of ideation and evaluation. A framework is defined for structuring and understanding the management of collective innovation processes and the roles of participants. These findings have significant practical and theoretical implications for social innovation.

Gray matter density in relation to different facets of verbal creativity

Neuroscience studies on creativity have revealed highly variegated findings that often seem to be inconsistent. As recently argued in Fink and Benedek (Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 2012), this might be primarily due to the broad diversity in defining and measuring creativity as well as to the diversity of experimental procedures and methodologies used in this field of research. In specifically focusing on one measure of brain activation and on the well-established process of creative ideation (i.e., divergent thinking), EEG studies revealed a quite consistent and replicable pattern of right-lateralized brain activity over posterior parietal and occipital sites. In this study, we related regional gray matter density (as assessed by means of voxel-based morphometry) to different facets of psychometrically determined verbal creativity in a sample of 71 participants. Results revealed that verbal creativity was significantly and positively associated with gray matter density in clusters involving the right cuneus and the right precuneus. Enhanced gray matter density in these regions may be indicative of vivid imaginative abilities in more creative individuals. These findings complement existing functional studies on creative ideation which are, taken as a whole, among the most consistent findings in this field.

Information Communication and Technology (ICT) and the Challenges of Ideation in Graphic Design: An Activity Theory Focus

The introduction of technology into graphic design education has resulted in some challenges within the pedagogy of ideation. In ideation, - generating, developing, and testing ideas leading to solutions - influences of technology are creating new possibilities for students to conceive ideas differently from the traditional methods. Using activity theory as a lens, the paper discusses the ‘disturbances’ in the ideation process of graphic design with ICT, especially within large class in a developing country. It concludes with a call for a review of pedagogical issues of ideation with a conviction that such disturbances can be overcome with the right pedagogy, with ICT as a support in the ideation process. Whatever our scepticism about ICT, there is some important aspects that can only be addressed if we adopt some of the new digital technologies, by modifying the current pedagogy.

Interpreting and envisioning — A hermeneutic framework to look at radical innovation of meanings

The recent success of companies that compete through design has raised an interest on how to innovate the customer experience of a product or service. Even in industrial markets firms are increasingly moving beyond the improvement of functional performance, to address a deeper redefinition of the reason why their clients buy and use a product, what we call a “radical innovation of product meanings”. Whereas there is a wide body of literature about technological innovation, we still lack robust theoretical frameworks that explain how companies can successfully propose new experiences and new interpretations of what a product is meant for. The purpose of this article is to stimulate and support the development of studies on radical innovation of meaning by providing a new theoretical lens. We propose hermeneutics as a valuable perspective to investigate the radical innovation of product meanings. Differently than classic innovation theories, where innovation tends to be considered either as a process of problem solving or as a process of ideation, hermeneutics provides a framework to look at innovation as a process of interpreting (of developing meaningful scenarios rather than finding an optimal solution) and envisioning (of imagining experiences that are still not asked for, rather than answering to existing needs). We illustrate that, in this process, external networks have a central role as they feed a continuous debate about what is or is not meaningful. Hermeneutics, therefore, is useful to shed light on how external players may significantly affect the way a firm reframes its interpretation of the competitive context and gives meaning to things. The article is conceptual in nature, since it aims at providing a theoretical platform which other scholars may build on: the purpose is to provide an indication of a possible direction to spur a cumulative process of knowledge development, rather than a conclusion. Yet, we support our arguments for the use of hermeneutics in exploring the radical innovation of meaning with examples and cases from our preliminary analyses, mostly in the fields of robotics and healthcare.

Structuring the early fuzzy front-end to manage ideation for new product development

This paper presents the creation of a reference stage-gate process model for ideation activities in the early fuzzy front-end of new product development (NPD). The work is based on a unique empirical approach that combines the results from NPD research with insights gained from expert interviews of key innovation stakeholders in industry in order to come up with a list of key success factors for the ideation process. These factors provide the pillars for the design of an ideation reference process model from which company-specific ideation processes can be derived taking into account the organisation's specific context and innovation culture.

Creativity and Information Systems in a Hypercompetitive Environment: A Literature Review

In today’s hypercompetitive environment in which markets change rapidly and competitive advantages are difficult to sustain, companies are forced to innovate and identify new business opportunities. However, innovation requires ingenuity and creativity. Product and service development depends on the creativity of employees, but harvesting and bringing novel ideas to fruition is often a chaotic process, which underscores the importance of creativity management within organizations. In this article, we review the literature on creativity in an effort to summarize state-of-the-art knowledge on how to stimulate creativity and spur innovation in modern organizations. For that purpose, we use Rhodes’ 4-Ps model (1961) distinguishing between creative environments (called press), people, products, and processes. Through a review of 110 journals on the AIS journal list, this article offers insights―based on eighty-eight articles―into how creativity can be stimulated and supported by attending to each of these components. The literature teaches us how to utilize, evaluate, and strategize about creativity in organizational settings. Managers are advised to advance creativity and ideation processes, for example by building virtual environments that strengthen collaboration and creativity across organizational boundaries. Researchers are encouraged to investigate the relationship between strategy and information systems (IS) usage in fostering creativity.

Designing writing/designing reading: Textual ontologies and poetic practice

Abstract Standardized writing and reading practices in academia are well established. The academic book, article, dissertation and the report are all familiar in terms of both form and content. But due to the various forms of standardization it is often hard to challenge the Mandarin diseases of ‘group’ thought and instruction that Universities breed in imposing their own strict writing and reading protocols and forms of pedagogy. (Alongside these things sit all the evaluative forms and kinds of assessment machinery that go with the practice of trying to count and measure everything that academics or students produce.) So if we need to consider new ways to design writing and reading we should think more about the way in which we actually live with text, both virtually and actually. In order to present new semantic challenges for new writers and readers, then, we need might need to look at the ways that other practitioners from different fields and disciplines use and create (and curate) writing and reading – where ‘con’ (with) combines with ‘textere’ (weave/text) so that the text is woven with new meanings. In what follows, then, I will consider how a poetics of textual practice may start to encourage students to engage with richer, and more carefully designed, forms of meaning. More specifically, I wish to draw on various tasks that can be set to encourage student designers to put more meaning into their writing by making challenges to form. The production of writing and reading can be considered as integral to the research and ideational processes of design work. And so how graphic design can engender, unfold and fuse with other creative practices such as poetry may be important in enabling new textual rhythms, harmonies and melodies to develop in the subject of design.

Índice de riesgo para el intento suicida en México

To develop a risk index of suicide attempts in the last 12 months among people with suicide ideation. Cross-sectional study. Data came from the National Addictions Survey 2008. The risk index was made up by age, marital status, religion, occupation, area of the country in which they live, immigrant to the United States, alcohol and drug consumption, depression symptoms, behavioral problems and a history of sexual abuse. We found a monotonic relationship between the increase in risk factors and the existence of a plan and the risk, with an odds ratio over 2.07 up to 152.19. The area under the curve is quite high, with a value of 0.844, very close to 1. The use of this index may help prevent patients from further developing their suicide ideation process and may prevent a suicide attempt of uncertain consequences, including death.

SER Y DEVENIR EN LOS DIAGRAMAS. Huellas y protoformas como subtexto arquitectónico: de Deleuze a Eisenman

The use of diagrams as design tools has enriched recent architectural debate and has produced an alternative course for the process of ideation in architecture. However, diagrams and schemes are often confused with each other ignoring the constraints that the topological conceptualization of the latter entails. The paper attempts to examine the analytical and generative qualities of the diagrams using Eisenman’s architecture and his theoretical discourse as a reference, while establishing the connections between his work and the philosophy of Deleuze. Half way between being and becoming diagrams differ from drawings or schemes operating as mediators between matter and form.

Free Form Surface Skinning of 3D Curve Clouds for Conceptual Shape Design

In product design, designers often create a multitude of concept sketches as part of the ideation and exploration process. Transforming such sketches to 3D digital models requires special expertise due to a lack of intuitive computer aided design (CAD) tools suitable for rapid modeling. Recent advances in sketch-based user interfaces and immersive environments have introduced novel curve design methods that facilitate the transformation of such sketches into 3D digital models. However, rapid surfacing of such data remains an open challenge. Based on the observation that a sparse network of curves is reasonably sufficient to convey the intended geometric shape, we propose a new method for creating approximate surfaces on curve clouds automatically. A notable property of our method is that it relieves many topological and geometric restrictions of 3D conventional networks such as the curves do not need to be connected to one another or gently drawn. Our method calculates a 3D guidance vector field in the space that the curve cloud appears. This guidance vector field helps drive a deformable closed surface onto the curves. During this deformation, surface smoothness is controlled through a set of surface smoothing and subdivision operations. The resulting surface can be further beautified by the user manually using selective surface modification and fairing operations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on several case examples. Our studies have shown that the proposed technique can be particularly useful for rapid visualization.

Delivering reform in English healthcare: An ideational perspective

A variety of perspectives has been put forward to understand reform across healthcare systems. Recently, some have called for these perspectives to give greater recognition to the role of ideational processes. The purpose of this article is to present an ideational approach to understanding the delivery of healthcare reform. It draws on a case of English healthcare reform – the Next Stage Review led by Lord Darzi – to show how the delivery of its reform proposals was associated with four ideational frames. These frames built on the idea of ‘progress’ in responding to existing problems; the idea of ‘prevailing policy’ in forming part of a bricolage of ideas within institutional contexts; the idea of ‘prescription’ as top-down structural change at odds with local contexts; and the idea of ‘professional disputes’ in challenging the notion of clinical engagement across professional groups. The article discusses the implications of these ideas in furthering our understanding of policy change, conflict and continuity across healthcare settings.

The Power of Ideas: The Ideational Shaping of the Structural Power of Business

It is now widely accepted that the classic arguments regarding the “structural power” of business are too “structuralist.” Subsequent research has focused on a widening array of independent variables that shape the variability of such power. This paper extends this research tradition, arguing that structural power theory has given insufficient attention to governmental actors, typically the targets of such power. The paper argues that ideas and the ideational processes through which government and state leaders construct threat perceptions regarding structural power can be important in mediating such power. The literature on power typically argues that power shapes ideas and disciplines target subjects. This paper revises this logic by arguing that the ideas of target subjects can also shape power. The paper’s arguments then are essentially constructivist, but the paper extends such arguments by insisting on a greater role for agency than is often found in constructivist reasoning.

Design by Analogy: A Study of the WordTree Method for Problem Re-Representation

This paper presents a novel approach, referred to as the WordTree design-by-analogy method, for identifying distant-domain analogies as part of the ideation process. The WordTree method derives its effectiveness through a design team’s knowledge and readily available information sources (e.g., patent databases, Google) and does not require specialized computational knowledge bases. A controlled cognitive experiment and an evaluation of the method with redesign projects illustrate the method’s influence in assisting engineers in design-by-analogy. Individuals using the WordTree method identified significantly more analogies and searched outside the problem domain as compared to the control group. The team redesign projects demonstrate the WordTree method’s effectiveness in longer-term, more realistic, higher validity team projects and with a variety of different design problems. Teams successfully identified effective analogies, analogous domains, and analogous patents. Unexpected and unique solutions are identified using the method. For example, one of the teams identified a dump truck and panning for gold as effective analogies for the design of a self-cleaning cat litter box. In the controlled experiment, a cherry pitter was identified and implemented as a solution for designing a machine to shell peanuts. The experimental results also highlight potential improvements for the method and areas for future research in engineering design theory.

Struggle Between Survival and Death: The Life Experiences of Taiwanese Older Adults with Suicidal Ideation

The purpose of this study was to use grounded theory to explore the subjective experiences of suicidal ideation among Taiwanese older adults in the community. Fifteen participants ages 66 to 88 were interviewed, and data were analyzed using a constant comparative analysis method. The Struggle Between Survival and Death was defined as the core category. Loss of loved ones, possession, and health was defined as the antecedent condition. The older adults struggled between survival and death during a suicidal ideation process categorized as negative emotions without an outlet, reminiscence about past achievements,lingering or persistent suicidal ideation, and hesitation to commit suicide. Lastly, the participants reported experiencing a meaningless existence in their daily lives. It is crucial to provide sensitive support to older adults who have had loss of life experiences, including providing an outlet to express negative emotions, religious support, reminiscence therapy, or a life review.

Editorial

Editorial

Individual learning, ideation and innovation management - discussion paper seen from innovation management practices

This paper discusses that the hitherto applied practice in innovation projects has a fundamental fallacy to it which can inhibit ideation capabilities and thus the creation of new businesses (Chesbrough et al., 2006; Christensen, 2003). In consequence, this paper elaborates on three key themes which potentially can reduce the gap between creativity and innovation. The themes are as follows: 1 ideation and innovation processes should be managed as two separated operations in practice 2 awareness about individual learning and learning styles ameliorate cooperation and communication in the processes 3 the cognitive domain of personal knowledge is important to articulate to clarify the validity of the arguments used in both the ideation and innovation processes. The author puts it into hypothesis that the quality of the ideation processes and the results of these processes will be improved radically.

Improving Satisfaction: The Importance of Ownership of the Topic under the Group Brainstorming Technique

Designers always start to make ideation through brainstorming technique. Experience of satisfaction would determine the successful of the group performance. This study attempts to explain how personality traits influence satisfaction through the sense of ownership. Results showed that ownership of the topic mediates the relationships between the three personality traits, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability and Satisfaction. Groups that are high on these three personality traits would have high level of ownership on the topic given, subsequently, this high interest on the ideation process during the technique of brainstorming enhance their satisfaction to create new ideas.