Creativity Theories and Scientific Discovery: a Study of C-k Theory and Infused Design1

Creativity is central to human activity and is a powerful force in personal and organizational success. Approaches to supporting creativity are diverse and numerous. The only way to understand the diversity and utility of these methods is through their careful analysis. This paper demonstrates the benefit of conducting analyses of methods with the aid of a theory. As a first step, we use Infused Design (ID) method to generate new concepts and methods in the classic discipline of statics, in addition to its prior use in the generation of a number of creative designs. The use of the ID method in the creative scientific discovery process is modeled with C-K design theory, leading to better understanding of ID and C-K. The exercise in this paper illustrates how the synthesis of a theory, a framework and methods that support discovery and design is useful in modeling and evaluation of creativity methods. Several topics for future research are described in the discussion.