Preconditioned ideas

Design ideas sometimes need technological or cultural preconditions to be fulfilled for innovation to happen. For example, social media platforms would not have happened without the invention of the Internet. However, such preconditioned-driven innovation has a long history. Galileo, the Renaissance astronomer (1564-1642), for instance, used his skills as a lens-maker to greatly improve existing telescopes which, together with the use of illustrated printed books, enabled him to prove his theory of a heliocentric universe. Galileo, then, both as a thinker (conceptual innovator) and a maker (experimental innovator), is a powerful example of the key role that technologies play in enabling advances in scientific knowledge. Also, Galileo's achievements show how innovation, as a problem-solving concept, is preconditioned on previous ideas, research or experiments. Moreover, designers, through analysing and interpreting historical innovations may identify which ideas have been successful and which haven't. As a result, establishing a positive relationship to history, past ideas pave the way for future innovation. 

Ideation as function of human language

Ideas, as linguistic phenomena function at several levels of human language. Karl Popper, the philosopher (1902-1994), talks about higher and lower functions of language. Accordingly, the lower functions of language are self-expression and signalling whereas the two most important higher functions of human languages are the descriptive function and the argumentative function. Popper holds that the lower two functions are always present when the higher ones are present. Moreover, he regards the role of argument as important as observation and experiment. Now, if relating Popper's line of thought to ideation, one might say that idea generation corresponds to self-expression and signalling whereas idea communication compares to the descriptive function and the argumentative function. That is, designers generate ideas (self-expression) and communicate ideas (descriptive function and argumentative function), which constitute the ideation process. And so, self-expression is always present in the idea argument which reflects the transient nature of ideas, that is, ideas may always be replaced by other ideas. In other words, argumentation is an important part of ideation, or "proving" the idea.

Playfulness

Playfulness is evident in children all over the world. Children play to create, learn and communicate. And playfulness plays a creative role in design practice too. Indeed it can be seen as a methodology to support the design process. In this, playfulness reflects an attitude to designing that encourages creative thinking and making, from motivation and exploration to stimulation and collaboration. Moreover, playfulness encourages design teams to focus on creative potential rather than criticism of each others' ideas. A current example of playful design is the Play Pavilion in Kensington Gardens, London, a temporary summer venue open to people of all ages.The pavilion, with its single dome volume, acrylic skin and bright colours, is a joint project by the Lego Group, the Serpentine Gallery and the architect Peter Cook, a co-founder of the Archigram collective in the 1960. Cook describes the pavilion as a “theatre of formative play” where architecture becomes a stage for unstructured creativity. The project also expresses Cook's idea that building should be joyful, social, and open-ended, a reminder that architecture can be soft, silly, experimental, and still deeply intelligent. https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/play-pavilion-commission-by-sir-peter-cook-in-partnership-with-the-lego-group/

 

Ideation structure

Ideation, as a form of creative activity can be either structured or unstructered , as enjoyed or observed in the way we play games. Structured play, then, includes board games, such as chess, or organised sports, such as tennis. Unstructured play, or free play includes many collaborative improvisational games such as story-telling or role-play. Games can also be played solo, of course. But there is no single definition of free and unstructured play, nor are there any specific prescribed methods. And so, structured and unstructered creative activity may overlap. Brainstorming, for example, is a technique to generate ideas that can be either a managed, goal-oriented session or a more spontaneous, open-ended affair, or both, that is, hybrid. And so with ideation.

Original ideas in the age of AI

An original idea, as created by humans is said to be one not thought up by another person beforehand. Yet there are few truly original ideas in design as most ideas consist of recombination or reconfiguration of existing ideas or elements of thought. Moreover, the concept of originality is both culturally and historically contingent being influenced by prior experiences and existing knowledge. 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 abstract concepts), are not protected by copyright law. That is, copyright protects the tangible expression of an idea, say, a drawing or a model but not the idea itself. This principle ensures that while unique expressions are safeguarded, the basic building blocks of creativity—ideas—are free for all to use and build upon. 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, was instrumental 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.