A Multi-Representation and Multi-Procedure Based Computational Environment for Creative Design

Creativity literature is motivated by several distinct, often conflicting, goals: understanding, replicating and assisting creativity. We believe that assistance presents the most realistic and fruitful avenue. In order to understand the nature of design assistance in this area, evidence obtained from puzzles and a design protocol are revisited. This reexamination suggests that the sudden mental insight condition, a well known phenomenon discussed in creativity literature, is linked to the deliberate shift of design representations and associated procedures. Based on this observation, we propose a computational environment, derived from currently available software environments, which is multi-representational and multi-procedural. This appears to be a promising research direction for the development of computational support environments for design creativity.