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An exploration of how creativity, functionality, and aesthetics are related in design

Han, Ji; Forbes, Hannah; Schaefer, Dirk

Authors

Ji Han

Hannah Forbes



Abstract

Creativity is considered to have a significant impact on the design process and its outcomes, while aesthetics and functionality are considered key characteristics of products. A relationship between creativity, aesthetics and functionality is, therefore, often assumed, however, researchers view the relations between creativity, functionality and aesthetics differently. In this paper, the authors present first evidence that novelty, usefulness and surprise are the core elements of design creativity. The aim of this research is the exploration of the relations between functionality, aesthetics, novelty, usefulness, surprise, and overall creativity, by means of an experimental case study involving design experts evaluating forty-five design samples. Statistical analysis has been conducted to investigate and understand these relations. The results obtained indicate that aesthetics has a significant positive relationship with creativity but that functionality does not have a statistically significant relationship with creativity in general. Further analysis confirms that design creativity is strongly and positively related to novelty and surprise, but not significantly related to usefulness. In addition, high correlation coefficient values have revealed that creativity, novelty and surprise are perceived as the same dimension as are functionality and usefulness. This paper may be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and educators in the broader realm of design, including industrial design, creativity in design, engineering design, design innovation, product design and new product development. It provides new insights into how creativity is perceived within the field and offers a new point of view on creativity and its dimensions for the community to meditate and to debate.

Citation

Han, J., Forbes, H., & Schaefer, D. (2021). An exploration of how creativity, functionality, and aesthetics are related in design. Research in Engineering Design, 32(3), 289-307. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00163-021-00366-9

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 19, 2021
Online Publication Date May 5, 2021
Publication Date Jul 1, 2021
Deposit Date Apr 3, 2024
Publicly Available Date Apr 3, 2024
Journal Research in Engineering Design
Print ISSN 0934-9839
Electronic ISSN 1435-6066
Publisher Springer
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 32
Issue 3
Pages 289-307
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s00163-021-00366-9
Keywords Aesthetics; Creativity; Functionality; Novelty; Surprise; Usefulness
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4618427

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.




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