Structured vs unstructured ideation

The difference between structured and unstructered creative activity can be seen in the way we play games. Structured play, then, would be board games, such as chess, or sports, such as tennis, whereas unstructured play would be improvisation, such as free-form jazz, freehand drawing or modelling. Ideation suggests there are benefits to be had from both types of play. That is, advantages of structured ideation would include collaboration with peers, developing problem solving skills or critical thinking within limits or constraints whereas unstructured ideation would encourage creative and playful expression without limitations. In practice, however, there are likely to be overlaps between structured and unstructered creative activity. Brainstorming, for example, is a technique to generate ideas that can be either a managed, goal-oriented session, a more spontaneous, open-ended team effort or a mixture of the two. And so with ideation.

Original ideas in the age of AI

An original idea is said to be one not thought up by another person beforehand. Yet, arguably, there are few truly original ideas in design. Most ideas consist of combinations, developments or byproducts of other ideas, or are inspired by old ideas. Moreover, the concept of originality is both culturally and historically contingent. The modern idea of originality goes back to the Age of Enlightenment (knowledge gained through rationalism and empiricism) and its response in Romanticism (the importance of subjectivity, imagination and appreciation of nature). In law, originality is a legal concept with respect to intellectual property, IP, where creativity and invention are manifested as copyrightable works. But while the battle over artificial intelligence, AI, and copyright continues, ideas (and facts, and concepts), are not protected by copyright law. That is, only the way in which the idea is expressed is protectable. And so, because ideas per se cannot be copyrighted, anyone, including AI companies and creative industries can build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by someone else. But while combining AI and human intuition and emotional depth expands possibilities for human expression, the question about what is originality remains and so the nature of creativity itself. In addition to ideas, there are several other things that are not eligible for copyright protection: https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/whats-not-protected-by-copyright-law/

Ideation and the 80- 20 rule

The 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, was introduced in 1906 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. The story goes that Pareto noticed that 20 per cent of the pea pods in his garden were responsible for 80 per cent of the peas. Pareto expanded this principle to macroeconomics by showing that 80 per cent of the wealth in Italy was owned by 20 per cent of the population. In the 1940s, Dr. Joseph Juran, a US engineer who took an interest in operations management applied the 80-20 rule to quality control for business production. He demonstrated that 80 per cent of product defects were caused by 20 cent of the problems in production methods. At its core, then, the 80-20 rule simply underscores the importance of focusing on those aspects of your business—or any other problem-solving area —that get you the best results. In short, the 80-20 rule is a principle that states that 80 percent of all outcomes are derived from 20 per cent of causes. Although there is little scientific analysis that either proves or disproves the 80-20 rule's validity, it is said that you can use this concept in any field. So, let's try and apply the 80 - 20 rule to design ideation. For example, using a range of ideation tools - from sketching to prompts for AI - which tool(s) would help generate most of the ideas for any given task? That is, keeping track of ideation tools used in the project might reveal, say, that ChatGPT, representing 1/5 of all tools used, is responsible for 80 per cent of the ideas generated. Q.E.D. P.S.This is, of course, a quantitative, not a qualitative measure. (The above Pareto text is derived from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/80-20-rule.asp)

Constraints in the ideation process

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), the composer, wrote: 'My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.' At first this may seem to go against conventional thinking about creativity, that is, "do whatever you want with no limits" (divergent thinking). In contrast, constraints may be perceived as reducing options and so inhibit creative risk-taking and innovation (convergent thinking). Yet, ideation is iterative, like the design process itself, a constant push and pull between divergent and convergent thinking. Ideators, then, would benefit from a balanced approach that provides enough freedom within a framework of constraints to yield the most creative outcomes.

From Shakespeare to AI and back

When Polonius asks Hamlet what he is reading, Hamlet's answer is: 'words, words, words'. And so since Shakespeare's days, language, spoken and written, has had a privileged position in Western culture. Indeed both natural language processing, NLP and machine learning, ML, as sub-fields of artificial intelligence, AI, learn from historical datasets by finding patterns and relationships in the data and are widely used in generative artificial intelligence, GenAI. And GenAI models are used both for text-based tasks and text-to-image content, as exemplified by chatbots like GPT4 or by content generators such as Midjourney, which generates images from natural language descriptions known as prompts. When these technologies are combined they complement one another by using NLP’s ability to understand and analyse language and GenAI’s capacity to produce new content. And so both technologies underline language as key to human communication, like in Shakespeare's days. Moreover, AI, as a sub discipline of computer science is transforming the methods and nature of scientific research and its use of language highlights the most crucial aspect of science. That is, the skill to ask the right questions - not from answering known questions, but from asking challenging new questions and questioning previous ideas. The challenge for ideators, then, is to see things in a new and different light. But while ways of seeing may come before words, the use of language, in defining the problem and getting closer to the solution is at the core of design. And so, whether Shakespeare or a present-day designer (in communicating in the context of design), they both turn words. *Cf. Dostoyevsky's psychological exploration of a murderer in Crime and Punishment, his remorse and redemption posed an immense challenge for cinematic rendering, as in the 1935 US film version of the novel: 'as there could be no visual equivalent [for] the author's detailed reasoning and elaborate description of [his characters] mental attitudes'. Baxter, J. 1971. The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg. The International Film Guide Series. A.S Barners & Company, New York.

Idearo, ergo sum

Ideas appear extensively in the sociology of design, in the sociology of innovation and culture. While content and context naturally vary, the way the idea is being communicated affects the perception and appreciation of, and the response to the idea. The presentation of the idea also releases and conveys the emotion embedded in the ideation process. All which reflect and deepen individual and societal understandings of design, both as process and outcome. The advances of technology has not fundamentally changed the underpinnings of ideas. For instance, GenAI simply masks the simple art of observation or what is seen in the imagination. And so, ideas are generated, developed and shaped by the cultures we live in, by the circumstances of life, or by the particular gifts or weaknesses we have as individuals. Indeed ideation lies so deep in human nature that one is tempted to think of it as innate. To paraphrase; I ideate, therefore I am.

I, Me and My Ideas

Does GenAI risk designers getting tangled up in ego and computer-mediated images? For example, the designer who practises ideation as a multi-sensory experience as opposed to merely generating and representing ideas using computer software. That is, for the designer to draw on their own knowledge, experience and emotion as a way to strip their ideation performance of artifice such as GenAI. But whatever the ideation process, analogue, digital or mixed, ideation is commonly driven by the desire to seek reward, or ward (recognition) in return for the effort to be unique or enhance creative reputation. The drive for uniqueness is reflected in how designers fall in love with their own ideas. The act of falling in love with one’s own creation is derived from Greek mythology, in which Pygmalion fell in love with a statue of Aphrodite that he had sculpted. Today, the use of generative models such as ChatGPT and Midjourney suggests that designers are falling in love with the capability of the machine as much as with their own creative capability blurring the identification, and authenticity of "I, Me and Myself" and "They".