A challenge for human-computer interaction researchers and user interface designers is to construct information technologies that support creativity. This ambitious goal can be attained by building on an adequate understanding of creative processes. This paper offers a four-phase framework for creativity that might assist designers in providing effective tools for users:- Collect: learn from previous works stored in digital libraries, the web, etc.- Relate: consult with peers and mentors at early, middle and late stages- Create: explore, compose, and evaluate possible solutions- Donate: disseminate the results and contribute to the digital libraries Within this integrated framework, this paper proposes eight activities that require humancomputer interaction research and advanced user interface design. A scenario about an architect illustrates the process of creative work within such an environment.

We live in a world characterized by evolution -- that is, by ongoing processes of development, formation, and growth in both natural and human-created systems. Biology tells us that complex, natural systems are not created all at once but must instead evolve over time. We are becoming increasingly aware that evolutionary processes are ubiquitous and critical for technological innovations as well. This is particularly true for complex software systems because these systems do not necessarily exist in a technological context alone but instead are embedded within dynamic human organizations. The Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L 3 D) at the University of Colorado has been involved in research on software design and other design domains for more than a decade. We understand software design as an evolutionary process in which system requirements and functionality are determined through an iterative process of collaboration among multiple stakeholders, rather than being completel...

Technology development in HCI can be interpreted as a co-evolution of tasks and artifacts. The tasks people actually engage in (successfully or problematically) and those they wish to engage in (or perhaps merely to imagine) define requirements for future technology, and specifically for new HCI artifacts. These artifacts, in turn, open up new possibilities for human tasks, new ways to do familiar things, entirely new kinds of things to do. In this paper we describe psychological design rationale as an approach to augmenting HCI technology development and to clarifying the sense in which HCI artifacts embody psychological theory. A psychological design rationale is an enumeration of the psychological claims embodied by an artifact for the situations in which it is used. As an example, we present our design work with the View Matcher, a Smalltalk programming environment for coordinating multiple views of an example application. In particular, we show how psychological design rationale was used to develop a view matcher for code reuse from prior design rationales for related programming tasks and environments. 1. TASKS AND ARTIFACTS In 1605, Sir Francis Bacon called for a "natural history of trades." He urged that technical tools, techniques and processes be made more public and explicit. This was one element in his broader project of developing practical science, and hinged on the assumption that if such knowledge could be more systematically considered and integrated, human progress would necessarily result. Thus, Bacon suggested that new concepts and inventions would result "by a connexion and transferring of the observations of one Arte, to the use of another, when the experiences of several misteries shall fall under the consideration of one man's minde."(1970: Book...

Software development remains mentally challenging despite the continual advancement of training, techniques, and tools. Because completely automating software development is currently impossible, it makes sense to seriously consider how tools can improve the mental activities of developers apart from automating them away. Such mental assistance can be called “cognitive support”. Understanding and developing cognitive support in software engineering tools is an important research issue but, unfortunately, at the moment our theoretical foundations for it are inadequately developed. Furthermore, much of the relevant research has occurred outside of the software engineering community, and is therefore not easily available to the researchers who typically develop software engineering tools. Tool evaluation, comparison, and development are consequently impaired. The present work introduces a theoretical framework intended to seed further systematic study of cognitive support in the field of software engineering tools. This theoretical framework, called RODS, imports ideas and methods from a field of cognitive science called “distributed cognition”. The crucial concept in RODS is that cognitive support can be understood and explained in terms of the computational advantages that are conferred when cognition is redistributed between software developer and their tools and environment. The name RODS, in fact, comes from the

The power of the unaided, individual mind is highly overrated: The Renaissance scholar no longer exists. Although creative individuals are often thought of as working in isolation, the role of interaction and collaboration with other individuals is critical to creativity. Creative activity grows out of the relationship between individuals and their work, and from the interactions between an individual and other human beings. Because complex problems require more knowledge than any single person possesses, it is necessary that all involved stakeholders participate, communicate, collaborate, and learn from each other. Distances (across spatial, temporal, and technological dimensions) and diversity (bringing stakeholders together from different cultures) are important sources for social creativity. This paper describes conceptual frameworks and sociotechnical environments (derived from the systems that we have developed over the last decade) in which social creativity can come alive. Keywords design, social creativity, spatial distance, temporal distance, technological distance, diversity, communities of practice, communities of interest, division of labor

While the course of technological change is widely accepted to be highly uncertain and unpredictable, little work has identified or studied the ultimate sources and causes of that uncertainty. This paper proposes that purely technological uncertainty derives from inventors ’ search processes with unfamiliar components and component combinations. Experimentation with new components and new combinations leads to less useful inventions on average, but it also implies an increase in the variability that can result in both failure and breakthrough. Negative binomial count and dispersion models with patent citation data demonstrate that new combinations are indeed more variable. In contrast to predictions, however, the reuse of components has a nonmonotonic and eventually positive effect on variability.

We explore how interorganizational networks coevolve with technology in the modern flight simulation industry. Since industries characterized by complex technologies, like flight simulation, rely on cooperative groups such as technical committees, task forces, and standards bodies to adjudicate the process of technological evolution, we focus on these groups and term them “cooperative technical organizations ” (CTOs). Focusing on CTOs enables a multi-level examination of interorganizational networks, as individuals represent their employing organizations in CTOs, mapping into overlapping membership patterns which generate community-wide networks. We develop a set of propositions on the emergence, growth and re-formation of CTO networks, and explore how the evolution of these networks both shapes and is constrained by technological outcomes in the flight simulation industry. We argue that varying levels of technological uncertainty between eras of ferment (high uncertainty) and eras of incremental change (low uncertainty) engender fundamentally different modes of network evolution: social construction during eras of ferment, and technological determinism during eras of incremental

Incremental product innovation is a critically important competitive factor in established industries. Firms in the cardiac pacemaker industry often benefit by bringing incremental innovations to market even though the new products may cannibalize the sales of existing profitable products. The more often an industry incumbent was among the first to introduce important incremental product innovations the greater its market share in the industry, while adopting innovations that had been introduced by competitors had a small positive relationship with greater market share. The greater the number of competitors that introduced similar products, the greater the market share of firms that were first to market. Greater market share, in turn, reduced the likelihood of business dissolution, while introducing important incremental innovations provided little or no reduction in the likelihood of business dissolution net of the effects of the market share that the firm achieved. The results apply most directly to industries in which buyers incur moderate switching costs. This paper investigates how an industry incumbent’s market share and business survival are affected by the firm’s tendency to lead or follow its competitors when introducing important incremental product innovations. We define important incremental product innovations as refinements and extensions of established designs that result in substantial price or functional benefits to users (Dosi, 1982; Henderson and Clark, 1990). A substantial literature addresses entry timing influences on market share and survival, but much of this work either addresses Key words: incremental innovations; business survival; market share; industry incumbents paradigmatic technical change, focuses on entry into new markets, or treats new product introductions as isolated events (e.g. Biggadike, 1979;

Abstract not found

Abstract not found