A systematic approach to assessing novelty, requirement satisfaction, and creativity

Abstract

It is well-known that creativity is crucial for sustaining a product against competition. Many factors have been proposed in the literature as indicators of creativity, among which outcome-characteristics-based factors are considered the most reliable; among these, the creativity of an outcome is often indicated by two major factors:noveltyandusefulness. Only a few studies address as to how creativity assessment methods and their results can be used during the design process. To systematically address the issue of how to influence creativity of design solutions, the following questions have been framed. (1) Which factors should be used as indicators of creativityconsistentlyacross different phases of the engineering design process? (2) How can creativity be assessed in terms of these factors during the engineering design process? In this work, we considernoveltyandusefulnessas the necessary factors forcreativity. It is found, however, that it is not possible todirectlyassess theusefulnessof outcomes during the design process. Therefore,requirement satisfactionis used as a proxy forusefulness. We propose a creativity assessment method that usesnoveltyandrequirement satisfactionas indicators for creativity; the method can be used for assessing not only complete products but also ideas or concepts, as they evolve through the phases of the design process. The application of the method in design is explained using a detailed example from a case study.

Fostering Creativity in Design - An Empirical Study on Improvement of Requirement-satisfaction with Introduction of InDeaTe Tool

“…The underlying hypothesis of the comparative study tested in this paper is the following: "The use of InDeaTe supports improvement of the degree of requirement-satisfaction (DRS) of the designs produced using InDeaTe". Since DRS can be used as a proxy measure for usefulness of a design, and usefulness is an indicator of creativity (Ranjan, et al, 2018); testing of the above hypothesis should be an indirect corroboration of the influence of InDeaTe in supporting creativity and associated innovation. The proposed empirical study tests the effect of the tool, already known for increasing sustainability considerations into the design process, on improving the requirement satisfaction in a solution, with respect to sustainability requirements (Rs) and non-sustainability requirements (Rns).…”

“…Usefulness of a design can truly be assessed only post-development, from the consumer experience of the product in its use-phase (Moss Jr, 1966;Sarkar and Chakrabarti, 2007). However, during the design process, it can be estimated by the 'requirement-accomplishment' evaluated against requirements (Lozano, 2009) or by the 'degree of requirement-satisfaction' i.e., DRS (Ranjan, et al, 2018).…”

“…However, a question remains as to whether this necessarily implies that the designs created are creative, so that the overall likelihood for sustainable innovation is improved. To assess the creativity of a design during the design process, Ranjan, et al (2018) propose, along with the use of 'novelty', 'degree of requirement-satisfaction' or DRS, the latter as a proxy measure for 'usefulness' -a creativity indicator -before the product is developed and taken to the society. However, at the conceptual stage of design, evaluating 'usefulness' or DRS is challenging as solutions exist at different levels of abstraction, lacking physical manifestation.…”

Assessing Concept Novelty Potential with Lexical and Distributional Word Similarity for Innovative Design

“…For example, Shah et al (2003) defines the design creativity metrics of novelty and variety, which are calculated with a function tree made in design process, and quantity which is the number of ideas created in design process. Ranjan et al (2018) defines the two major metrics of novelty and usefulness which are calculated by the degree of requirement-satisfaction. These assessment theories can be used to help designers think creatively during the design process.…”

“…Brainstorming is one of the most well-known techniques for generating novel concepts due to its simple and easy to learn nature (Daly et al, 2016), while it is not a systematic method and it heavily depends on a designer's ability. Researchers in design engineering domain have built theories to understand the process of design concept generation (Hatchuel and Weil, 2009), and the indicators to assess its creativity (Ranjan et al, 2018). General Design Theory (GDT) (Yoshikawa, 1981) is a pioneering research of design process.…”