Knowledge Base Repository

In addition to research papers, the Design Society is developing several valuable resources for those interested in the study of design. These include a repository of PhD theses, a library of case studies and transcripts of design activities, and an archive of our newsletters. Please note that these resources are accessible exclusively to Design Society members.

Development and validation of a product creativity evaluation framework for the assessment of functional consumer products

Kamyar Hazeri


Type:
Year:
2020
Author:
Supervisor:
Professor Peter Childs
Institution:
Imperial College London
DOI number:
Website:
Abstract:
A reliable method for creativity assessment of functional consumer products has been developed. In literature, creativity is explored in four main aspects of person, process, press, and product known as 4P’s of creativity. In this research, the product creativity measurement is studied aiming at assisting designers to better understand creativity and to be able to implement it in the design process. The research begins with defining the role of creativity in engineering design and continues with reviewing existing approaches for measuring product creativity in three main categories. In this research, a goal is to investigate the ability of the CAT for the assessment of consumer products produced under non-experimental conditions. The CAT was used together with domain experts to assess three categories of consumer products for creativity (home-accessories, electric-vehicles, and smoke-alarms). The results of inter-judge reliabilities indicated that CAT can reliably evaluate these products, although a larger number of raters (10 to 15) compared to those in artistic domains is recommended. Factor analysis revealed that for products with complex structures (electric-vehicles), experts are unable to distinguish the border between creativity and other influential factors such as product’s technical performance and or aesthetic appeal. As a result, the assessment of complex engineering products should be performed with caution. A theoretical framework to enable researchers to develop their own criterion-based instrument based on the product’s functionality is presented. The framework comprises 65 indicators in nine broad categories. A case study using 5 lounge-chairs and 288 university students was conducted to test the applicability and validity of the framework. A new internally consistent and factorially valid model was achieved. Overall, this project contributed to the field by extending the usage of CAT into functional products and by proposing a new framework to evaluate creativity. Accordingly, researchers/designers can get insights and enhance product creativity.

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