Products Designed on Scenario Maps using Pictorial KeyGraph

We developed a method of teamwork for a product design in a real manufacturing company, where Pictorial KeyGraph aids in the creative consensus of team mates. In Pictorial KeyGraph, photographs of real entities corresponding to incomprehensible items in given data are embedded to the visual result of KeyGraph applied to their business reports, by users with tacit and explicit expertise in the real world of business on the way of the communication for designing a product. In their communications, novel and practical scenarios of product behaviours were extracted, and 5 new patents have been applied. Behind this success, we found evidences that the team members tend to combine established concepts via rare words in creative designing: First pay attention to popular concepts in their business reports, appearing as islands in KeyGraph. Then, they calm down to speak less, and finally produce new scenarios by connecting islands via items lying between islands in KeyGraph. Key-Words: Data Visualization, Pictorial KeyGraph, Scenario Map, Design, Creativity