Complexity and contradiction in ideation

Design ideas. generally speaking can be characterised as either simple or complex where the simple idea proposes a fairly straightforward solution at low risk to implementation whereas the complex idea combines several simple ideas so as to produce one idea but with a less obvious solution and at higher risk or level of uncertainty. Designers deal with both simple and complex ideas although simple ideas are typically easier to generate and communicate to clients and other stakeholders. Overall, simple ideas are preferred as they are easier to understand and execute and are less likely to go wrong. Yet complexity reflects the multi-layered reality of the world around us which calls for deeper levels of understanding and greater problem solving ability on the part of designers. So what about contradiction between simplicity and complexity? Well, design ideas, as elements of thought, are interrelated and expressed through the project. And so, ideation, as part of the design process, is a puzzle of simple and complex ideas put together by the designers and stakeholders involved in the project, and increasingly so with the help of Generative AI, which has become a powerful ideation tool, and a virtual member of the design team.

2025: What have we here?

In a famous 1903 letter, the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) urges a protege of his to 'be patient toward all that is unsolved ... to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue … The point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.' And so, what have we here? A bit of self-help, perhaps, that is relevant to ideation in that it suggests how questions generate ideas, and vice versa. In other words, through the dynamic interplay of questions and ideas designers - and increasingly with Gen AI in the loop generate plans, proposals and ideas, and further questions to meet, and excel the requirements set out in the design brief.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Loosely defined as computer systems performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, AI is developing so fast that within the next 20 years, and according to Geoffrey Hilton, a pioneer on machine learning and neural network algorithms, we’re going to develop AI systems that are smarter than people. Similarly, the historian Yuval Harari, in writing on AI (Nexus, 2024) warns that we have now created a non-conscious but very powerful alien intelligence that, if mishandled, can extinguish the human domination on earth. Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web inventor, is concerned about the impact of big tech and digital media and holds that social manipulation, lack of transparency and surveillance with AI technology could, and should be countered by establishing effective safeguards. Yet while the risk of loss of human influences through algorithms needs to be taken seriously, there are limitations to AI compared to Human Intelligence in terms of creativity, intuition and adaptability let alone ethical and moral values. And so while AI is a powerful tool and an increasingly viable alternative in many areas, design ideation included, it is not yet a complete substitute for human intelligence. Positively, then, AI and human intelligence can complement each other, leveraging the strengths of both to achieve more through collaboration than either alone. That is, together, humans and AI are greater/better/more than the sum of its parts.

AI and human imagination

Artificial intelligence, AI, is increasingly having an impact on the design process, ideation included. Traditional ideation tools such as freehand sketches and sketch modelling have become integrated with computer software. As a result, technology marks a transformative shift in design practice where its integration with digital processes means machines collaborate with designers to generate data-driven ideas and solutions. Yet drawing by hand remains a tool for designers to capture and communicate ideas, as in "thinking with a pencil". Moreover, the immediacy of freehand drawing may encourage constructive in-person discussions with clients and stakeholders. Drawing also help expand designer knowledge of how things work, how things work together and helps to explore alternatives. Drawing by hand, however, is skill-based and needs practising. It is more time-consuming than software supported drawing and poses revision challenges and limited precision. But growing reliance on digital tools, AI included might reduce designers own unique style obscuring the deeply human aspects of design. And so the question remains: 'Will the rise of AI reduce designer capacity for originality and innovation, or will it serve as a catalyst for pushing the boundaries of creativity and expression?

Hands-on ideation

The digital age has transformed many aspects of our everyday experience - not least what we do with our hands when busying ourselves with digital devices. But what function does continual hand activity have? The most obvious answer is that we need our hands to do things. The hand is associated with agency and power. Hands serve us. They are the instruments of executive action, our tools. The idea of the hand as a tool, however, isn't new - it was common also in classical times. Where Anaxagoras had argued that humans are intelligent because they have hands, Aristotle, and many after him, countered that they have hands because they are intelligent, as the hands perpetuate our will instrumentally. In contemporary society, we are encouraged to counter the apparent excesses of the digital world by returning to traditional activities such as knitting, gardening, or general tinkering. Using our hands to make things is a remainder of the grounding, satisfying bodily techniques of the past. And when designers talk about why they practise hands-on skills such as freehand drawing and model making, the answers tend to reflect the importance of discovery, authenticity, and fulfillment. This blog entry inspired by, Leader, D (2016) Hands: What We Do with Them - and Why.

"AI Slop"

GenAI has triggered what has become known as “AI slop” – images and text created using generative AI tools. Coined in the 2020s, the term has a derogatory connotation akin to "spam", "junk" or digital clutter" that signify unwanted, poor quality AI content in social media or in online search results. However, Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said that new, AI-generated feeds were likely to come to Facebook and other Meta platforms: 'I think we’re going to add a whole new category of content, which is AI-generated or AI-summarised content or kind of existing content pulled together by AI in some way.'  Although AI-generated feeds on social media carries risks and ethical concerns, "spammy content" viewed critically may inspire ideation. Indeed ideation springs from many sources and the more we learn, experience, and try, the better we get at generating creative and meaningful ideas.

Fringe ideas

In her book An Anatomy of Inspiration Rosamund Harding (1898-1982), an English musical scholar, sets out to reverse-engineer the mechanisms of creativity through the direct experiences of famous creators across art, science, and literature. In so doing, Harding finds common threads of creativity emphasising its combinatorial nature and its reliance on eclectic knowledge. She holds: 'Originality depends on new and striking combinations of ideas. It is obvious therefore that the more a man knows the greater scope he has for arriving at striking combinations.' Harding continues: ' Success depends on adequate knowledge: that is, it depends on sufficient knowledge of the special subject, and a variety of extraneous knowledge to produce new and original combinations of ideas.' Moreover, she writes: 'The variety of interests tends to increase the richness of these extra ideas — ‘fringe-ideas’ — associated with the subject and thus to increase the possibilities of new and original combinations of thought'. Harding's findings suggest support for knowledge-based ideation while debunking the genius-myth of creativity*. That is, in-born creative ability is not enough by itself without a solid foundation of knowledge obtained by experience or study. But more than this, in the age of artificial intelligence, designers draw inspiration from a raft of genAI applications, such as Dall-E, which, given their combinatorial nature, help produce what Harding calls 'fringe ideas'. *Research trends, originally outlined by Graham Wallace (1926) suggest five major stages of creativity: Preparation (idea generation), Incubation (gestation period), Illumination (the "Aha! moment"), Evaluation (idea development) and Verification (idea communication).