DISSIMILARITIES OF DESIGNER IDEATION BY IDENTIFIED SEARCHING-RETRIEVAL BEHAVIOR IN REFERENCING ONLINE-OFFLINE MATERIAL

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1 Original papers Received December 14, 2014; Accepted September 20, 2015 DISMILARITIES OF DEGNER IDEATION BY IDENTIFIED SEARCHING-RETRIEVAL BEHAVIOR IN REFERENCING ONLINE-OFFLINE MATERIAL Pei-Jung CHENG Department of Media Design, Tatung University No.40, Sec.3, Zhongshan N. Rd., Taipei City 104, Taiwan Abstract: The study mainly examined the characteristics of the referencing behavior in designers ideation. Especially, designers searching behavior and retrieving behavior, and the interactive and connective relationship between the two referencing methods and other behaviors were described. Ten practicing graphic designers were observed while they completed assigned tasks. The study identified specific features of ideation in the designers stimulated by printed and online materials. Two distinct methods were used by the designers in developing ideas based on the process they used to transform their ideas. Based on considering the keyword-based information retrieving behavior, a thinkingseeing-moving structure was proposed in the study to describe designers ideation pattern in the digital environment. The study also highlights the importance of a mechanism supporting designers ideation that includes words and images. Keywords: Ideation, Retrieving behavior (RI), Searching behavior (), Referencing behavior 1. Introduction In design domains, visual data create mental images in designers and help them develop appropriate solutions during the design process [1-7]. Thus, visual stimuli are considered to strongly influence designers performance when they face various design problems [8, 9]. Designers often refer to relevant information during their ideation, and most designers spend over one-third of their ideation time searching for references that can enable them to address a design problem [10]. As Petre et al. [11] have observed and suggested, selecting and adapting a given source of visual stimuli or incorporating this interaction with a repertoire of images can produce something unexpected. Therefore, designers can generate ideas by drawing on the interplay between the visual stimuli that they are seeing and the imagery that the stimuli are associated with. Moreover, Schön [12] argued that all actions of designers are affected by their reflections on what they are seeing, and, therefore, each new experience enriches their repertoire for composing new variations and enables them to face the next design problem. For generating new insights and strategies to solve the design problems, designers require powerful mental association mechanisms that transform references into mental imagery. Thus, association is a creative cognitive process [13] and a key mechanism for acquiring new ideas [14] and managing the relationships among various designs. To find inspirational material for developing ideas, most designers today gather information by searching online sources rather than reference books. This form of referencing should be examined further because it may engender distinct associative methods or approaches for designers to use during ideation. Moreover, the referencing method raises a question in the design field as to whether the behavior of collecting computerized references changes designers normal associative mechanisms and ideation. Based on the aforementioned consideration, the question addressed in the study was whether designers regular ideation patterns change or are influenced by computerized data retrieving behavior (RI) when they design in a digital environment. The main purpose was to evaluate how information obtained from printed references and information obtained from online sources influence designers ideation process differently, as well as to identify the characteristics and designing patterns during graphic designers ideation in the digital environment. Copyright 2012 日本デザイン学会 All Rights Reserved. THE SCIENCE OF DEGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

2 2. Method To understand the Searching-Retrieving behavior (S-R) and ideation structure of designers, we observed ten practicing graphic designers while they completed assigned tasks. Moreover, the designers behavior (searching for information from printed material) and RI behavior (retrieving information on-line) were examined throughout their ideation time to elucidate the details and characteristics Participant and Task In the study, ten practicing graphic designers participated in the observational study and completed an assigned task. All designers had at least 2 years of work experience and were unaware of the purpose of the experiment. A brief summary of the ten participants personal information and work experience is presented in Table 1. The participants in this experiment were asked to perform one of the five types of devised tasks (see the last column of Table 1) to investigate whether the designers showed similar behavioral patterns while performing distinct tasks: 1) design a mascot for Ping Tong s wildlife park; 2) design a logo for Original Tasting restaurant; 3) design a form of trophy for a good teller competition; 4) design a DM for the New Year firework show; and 5) design a mark for the Paralympic Games. The study thought of all participants should take similar time to perform an assigned task. Each task asked a participant to draw the similar output, belong to graphic design, but with a variety of objects Procedures The designers were observed in nine companies in Taiwan, a telecommunications company, five design firms, two personal studios and an accounting firm. The ten participants were asked to perform the assigned design task in their own workspace. To avoid disrupting their thought process while designing, we used digital cameras to monitor the participants external and nonverbal behaviors and collected the idea sketches they developed during ideation, but not any of their protocol data. The cameras were placed behind the participants, either on the right or on the left (Fig.1). Each participant received instructions about the assigned task and the requests at the beginning of the task. After the participants were prepared to perform the task, video recording of their ideation began, and the recording stopped when the participants indicated that they had developed a concrete and satisfactory idea that would serve as the final presentation for the task. All participants were free to search for any data relevant to the project that they required and were given all the time they desired to complete the assigned task, as in their everyday design practice Coding Scheme and Data Analysis As mentioned previously, the purpose was to determine the characteristics of designers referencesearching behaviors (S-R) during ideation. To accomplish this, we extracted the S-R behaviors of the ten participants from observational data. So that, the S-R code is one of the behavioral codes in design s behavioral coding scheme (refer to Table 2), which has been used to analyze graphic designers ideational behaviors during the research process [10]. However, for further discussing the designers referencing behavior in a digital environment, S-R behavioral code was divided into two sub-codes, behavior (searching for information) and RI behavior (retrieving information), which represent the two information referencing methods used during ideation. Between the two referencing behaviors, refers to the participants who searched for relevant information in books and RI refers to participants who gathered information online. Table 1. Participants Personal Information and Assigned Task Participant Gender Experience Type of company Design task No.1 Female 10 years Design firm Design a mascot for Ping-Tong s wildlife park No.2 Male 7.5 years In-house designer Design a logo for Original Tasting restaurant No.3 Female 7 years In-house designer Design a form of trophy for a good teller competition No.4 Male 7 years Individual studio Design a DM for the New Year firework show No.5 Female 6.5 years Individual studio Design a form of trophy for a good teller competition No.6 Female 5 years Design firm Design a mascot for Ping-Tong s wildlife park No.7 Male 5 years Design firm Design a logo for the Original Tasting restaurant No.8 Female 2.5 years Design firm Design a mark for the Paralympic Games No.9 Male 2 years Design firm Design a DM for the New Year firework show No.10 Female 2 year In-house designer Design a mark for the Paralympic Games 86 B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DEGN

3 Figure 1. Monitoring Method in the Observational Process After the observational data and designers idea sketches were collected, the study processed a content analytic process to identify the ten designers behaviors in the ideation. In the process, three design researchers at Tatung University (a professor and two graduate students in the design field) serve as coders for the analysis. The three coders viewed the video recording of each participant taking the assigned task to note the characteristics of the behaviors identifiable in the video data. To classify behaviors, the coders separated the raw data, which were transcribed from video recordings, into segments according to time points at which the participants changed behaviors. Each extracted segment coded as any behavior by one coder was compared with the other two coders classification to evaluate inter-coder reliability. Finally, the three coders recorded and identified nine kinds of external behavior during the designers ideation. The definition and the behavioral code of the totally nine behaviors are shown in Table 2. They are: 1.writing down ideas (); 2.reading own keywords (); 3.looking at own sketches (); 4.looking at relevant information (); 5.referring to the saved data (); 6.creating new sketches () and 7.continuing to sketch (). Besides, the critical step in the study was the extraction of the participants and RI behaviors from the video data. The other two codes are 8.searching for information () and 9.retrieving information (RI). Based on the activity theory [15], (Writing down ideas), (Searching for information) and RI (Retrieving information) may belong to synchronizing subject images ; (Reading own keywords), (Looking at own sketches), (Looking at relevant information) and (Referring to the saved data) may belong to visual stimuli processing ; (Creating new sketches) and (Continuing to sketch) may belong to object/material quality. The coders also compared and categorized each participant s idea sketches while they referred to printed or online materials, and thus we could identify the effects of the two referencing behaviors on the designers presentations. 3. Results and Discussions In the first observational experiment, the average time of all participants spent on taking the assigned task is There are totally 172 behavioral segments cut as the experimental data to be coded in the analysis process. The study shows the analytic results and described as follows Order of and RI Behavior in Designers Behavioral Flow The flowchart of the ten participants behaviors is shown in Figure 2, which also presents the timeframe of all their behaviors during ideation. The 9 types of behavior are marked using different colors in the behavioral flowchart, and the color of each behavior is shown as a color bar above the figure. and RI behavior, the focus in the study, are individually marked using orange with white letters and cyan with white letters in Figure 2. We divided the ten participants ideation flow into three stages of 20 min each from the beginning of ideation, because all participants spent approximately 60 min to complete their task. The period from the beginning to the 20th minute was named the pre-stage period, the period from the 21st to 40th minute was the mid-stage period, and the period from the 41st minute to the end was the post-stage period. Table 2. The Definition and the Behavioral Code of Each Behavior Behavior (code) Writing down ideas () Reading own keywords () Looking at own sketches () Looking at relevant information () Searching for information () Retrieving information (RI) Referring to the saved data () Creating new sketches () Continuing to sketch () Definition Writing down keywords as the ideas they generated to be used later; listing, adding or adjusting different alternatives Reading the keywords they have written down on paper in advance Looking at the sketches they have drawn in advance Looking at the information they have searched for or retrieved in advance, in which the searching or retrieving action is not included Searching for information in the reference material to stimulate ideas, sketching or drawing; pasting memo stickers on reference Retrieving information on-line to stimulate ideas, sketching or drawing; saving the retrieved information in the hard disc Referring to some saved data that have been retrieved on-line by themselves in advance Creating new shapes, labels or arrows Continuing to work on a sketch they had drawn THE SCIENCE OF DEGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

4 RI 1 2 Pre-stage Mid-stage Post-stage RI RI RI RI RI RI RI RI RI RI RI RI 3 RI RI RI RI RI 4 5 RI RI RI RI 6 RI RI 7 RI RI RI RI RI RI 0 mins 10 mins 20 mins 30 mins 40 mins 50 mins 60 mins Figure 2. Behavioral Flow of Each Participant s Ideation The behavioral flow of Participant 1 is used as an example and described as follows: First, the behaviors in the pre-stage period, in order, were RI,,, RI, and RI; then, the behaviors in mid-stage period, in order, were, RI,, RI, and ; and finally, the behaviors in post-stage period, in order, were,,,, and. Among the ten participants, only Participant 2 and 10 did not refer to the printed material during the ideation (), whereas Participant 8 and 9 did not refer to the on-line sources (RI). According to Fig. 2, half of the participants input thoughts as keywords in a search engine after reading task instructions, even though each participant was assigned a distinct task, indicating that their ideation began with thoughts being entered keywords to seek inspirational materials or information online. That is to say, many designers are getting used to have the keyword-based data retrieving behavior during the ideation. Moreover, the number of participants who presented RI behavior decreased from the pre-stage to the post-stage period, but the number of participants who presented behavior did not show much different from the beginning to the end. Most of the participants presented RI behavior in the pre-stage period and seldom exhibited it in the post-stage period. However, only Participant 2 presented RI behavior from the mid-stage period onward and continued to frequently presented it, as well as alternate RI with behavior (referring to some saved data) into the post-stage period, whereas other participants exhibited mainly (creating new sketches) and (continuing to work on a sketch they had drawn) behavior in the final stage Connective Relationships between, RI Behavior and Other Behaviors To understand the connective relationship between RI behavior, behavior and other behaviors, we examined the behavioral codes identified before and after the two behaviors in the three stages of ideation. We also marked them with two different symbols to show two types of connective relationship in the ten participants ideation (see Table 2 and 3). If a hollow circle was marked between a behavioral code and RI or at any stage, it meant that the behavior appeared either before or after the two types of behavior in a participant s behavioral flow in that stage, and it was named a one-way connective relationship. However, if a black circle was marked between a behavioral code and RI or at any stage, it means that the behavior appeared both before and after the two types of behavior in a participant s behavioral flow in that stage, and it was named a two-way connective relationship. In Table 3, the linkages between and other behaviors in pre-stage, mid-stage, and post-stage are indicated by the two connective relationship symbols, as well as indicated the linkages between RI and other behaviors in Table 4. The results showed that only behavior (writing down the ideas) and behavior (creating new idea sketches) had a two-way connective relationship with behavior in the pre-stage period of ideation, and was shown by Participant 6 and 8. Moreover, behavior, behavior (looking at own sketches), RI behavior (retrieving information on-line), and behavior (Continuing to sketch) had a stronger one-way connective relationship with behavior than other behaviors during this stage. Then Participant 6 s behavior (reading the keywords), Participant 9 s behavior (looking at relevant information) and behavior also exhibited a one-way connective relationship with behavior. 88 B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DEGN

5 Table 3. Connective Relationships between Participants Behavior and Other Behaviors Pre-stage Mid-stage Post-stage RI RI RI A B C D E F G H I J * The behavioral codes having a one-way connective relationship with are marked with a hollow circle; while the behavioral codes having a two-way connective relationship with are marked with a black circle. Table 4. Connective Relationships between Participants RI Behavior and Other Behaviors Pre-stage Mid-stage Post-stage A RI B RI C RI D RI E RI F RI G RI H RI I RI J RI * The behavioral codes having a one-way connective relationship with RI are marked with a hollow circle; while the behavioral codes having a two-way connective relationship with RI are marked with a black circle. During the mid-stage period of the participants ideation, RI behavior and behavior had a stronger two-way connective relationship with behavior than other behaviors, and were shown by Participants 1, 3 and 5, 8. Participant 5 s behavior and Participant 8 s behavior also had a two-way connective relationship with behavior. Moreover, behavior, behavior and behavior had a stronger one-way connective relationship with behavior than other behaviors in this stage, and then were Participant 6 s RI behavior. However, only behavior and behavior had the connective relationship with in the post-stage period of their ideation. Especially, behavior had the strongest two-way connective relationship with behavior during the stage, and was shown by Participant 1, 3, 5, and 8. Besides, Participant 6 and 9 s behavior also exhibited a one-way connective relationship with behavior in the stage, and then was Participant 7 s behavior. According to the results, the participants behavior had the strongest two-way connective relationship with behavior, and this connection was getting stronger from the pre-stage period to post-stage of participants ideation. Besides, the participants RI behavior and behavior had stronger two-way connective relationships with behavior in the mid-stage period than other behaviors. Thus, the participants behavior was not obviously connected with any specific behavior in the beginning, but was strongly connected with behavior in the post-stage period of ideation. On the other hand, behavior (writing down the ideas) had the strongest two-way connective relationship with RI behavior in the pre-stage period of ideation, and was shown by Participants 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10. Then Participant 3 s behavior (looking at relevant information) and Participant 10 s (creating new sketches) also had a two-way connective relationship with RI. Besides, behavior (searching for information) had a stronger one-way connective relationship with RI than other behaviors in all participants pre-stage period, and was shown by Participant 1 and 4. Then Participant 5 s behavior (referring to some saved data) and Participant 6 s behavior (reading the keywords) exhibited a one-way connective relationship with RI in this stage. During the mid-stage period of behavioral flow, had the strongest two-way connective relationship with RI behavior and was shown by Participants 1, 3 and 6, then were, shown by Participants 1 and 3. Participant 2 s behavior also had a two-way connection with RI in this period. Moreover, Participant 1 s behavior, Participant 2 s behavior, Participant 3 s behavior, and Participant 6 s behavior had one-way connections with RI in this stage. However, only Participants 2, 5 and 7 exhibited RI behavior in the post-stage period of their ideation. Among all behaviors, Participant 2 s and behavior, and Participant 7 s behavior had two-way connective relationships with RI behavior in this stage. Besides, had a stronger one-way connective relationship with RI behavior than other behaviors and was shown by Participants 2 and 5. Participant 2 s and Participant 5 s also exhibited a one-way connective relationship with RI in this stage. THE SCIENCE OF DEGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

6 According to these results, the participants behavior had the strongest two-way connective relationship with RI behavior, but this connection appeared in only the pre-stage period of participants ideation. Then, the behavior had stronger two-way connective relationships with RI behavior in the mid-stage period than other behaviors. Thus, the participants RI behavior was connected strongly with behavior in the pre-stage period, but then became connected more strongly with behaviors in the mid-stage period than with other behaviors. It is worth to notice that the two-way connection between RI and disappeared during the mid-stage to post-stage period of ideation. However, only the participants behavior (looking at own sketches) did not have any connective relationship with RI behavior during the ideation Distinctions between the Two Referencing Behaviors To examine the major characteristics and the dis-similarities of the two types of referencing behavior ( and RI), we selected four participants video data from the ten participants. Among the four participants, 8 and 9 completely referred to printed material for developing ideas () during the ideation, such as books or magazines, while participant 2 and 10 only referred to online sources (RI). To further illustrate the dissimilarities between RI and behavior, the sequential actions of Participant 2 s RI and Participant 8 s are selected and shown as examples in Table 5, and the two behaviors are described. Participant 2 s first action was to enter keywords in a search engine or in an image database online at the beginning of the RI behavior. Next, the participant browsed visual images and read relevant information online. The participant then wrote ideas on paper, saved relevant visual data or information on the hard disk for later reference, and continued browsing websites to search for additional stimuli or entered other keywords in a search engine to gather additional related information. Participant 8 s first action during ideation was to browse reference books. The designer next looked at specific images or information, and then pasted stickers on the targets or noted the generated ideas on paper. After that, the designer began to sketch and continually browsed reference books Categories of Idea Sketches This section presents an analysis of the four participants idea sketches sorted by the three coders. The result shows that the participants who engaged in referencing behavior generated more categories of ideas sketches than the participants who engaged in RI referencing behavior during ideation. We list each participant s idea sketches in Table 6 and describe the results as follows. First, regarding the number of sketches, all the participants drew eleven idea sketches during ideation except Participant 2, who drew three. Second, regarding the categories of each participant s idea sketches, Participant 2 s sketches were sorted into two categories, Participant 8 s sketches were sorted into six categories, Participant 9 s sketches were sorted into five categories, and Participant 10 s sketches were sorted into three categories. These results show that designers who engage in behavior (Participants 8 and 9) developed more distinct directions of idea during ideation than designers who engaged in RI behavior, suggesting that designers can generate more diverse ideas when they are referring to printed materials than when they are referring to online information. For example, Participant 9 s idea sketches showed that this designer developed five dimensions of ideas for completing the assigned task, including tall buildings, fireworks, and the year, and these ideas were all distinct. This diversity indicates that designers who engage in behavior tend to develop ideas horizontally during ideation. By contrast, designers who engage in RI behavior may develop similar ideas when inspired by online stimuli. Participant 2 s idea sketches, for example, showed that this designer developed only two different idea dimensions for the assigned task, which were the cloud-like shapes and a Chinese character. Participant 2 spent most of the ideation time thinking about and noting down ideas on paper and referring to online information, and, therefore, developed a more concrete solution for the design problem before starting to draw idea sketches than other designers did. We speculate that Participant 2 sought online stimuli to concentrate his idea. This can also explain the result in Section 3.3 showing that the designers who engaged in RI behavior continually revised previous idea sketches to prepare their final work. Thus, the idea existing in the designer s mind may have led to the development of several similar idea sketches. Given this perspective, we conclude that designers who exhibit RI behavior tend to develop ideas vertically during ideation. 90 B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DEGN

7 Table 5. Details of participant 2 s RI behavior and participant 8 s Sequential actions of the RI and behavior RI flow flow 3.5. General Discussions Dissimilarities in the two referencing behaviors Based on the results, two ways of thinking are considered and discussed in this section. Verbal thinking and visual thinking are used to describe the differences in ideation between Participants H and I and Participants B and J, as illustrated in Figures 3 and 4 and described below. Ideation in designers who engaged in behavior can be regarded mainly as visual thinking. When Participants H and I developed their ideas, they created several new idea sketches while referring to references in books or other printed materials. Specially, the two designers did not have any notation of ideas in written form during ideation, unlike in the case of the designers who engaged in RI behavior. Therefore, the influence of images on the designers ideation was critical. According to the observations, behavior (creating new idea sketch) exhibited the strongest two-way connective relationship with behavior, indicates that the designers who used behaviors thought visually. Based on this explanation, the two designers ideation style is illustrated in Figure 3. As mentioned previously, designers who engaged in behavior marked potential stimuli in books for later reference. The designers might have thought about or combined these visual stimuli to develop new ideas. The figure indicates that the two designers ideas were inspired by the images that they referenced and that their ideas were developed by combining those distinct stimuli. For instance, the designer may combine several different Stimuli to form an Idea Sketch. The designers who engaged in behavior extracted specific features from different images in the printed materials to use as elements of their idea sketches. This interpretation also emphasizes the influence of referring to printed visual stimuli on the development of ideas in these two designers. By contrast, ideation in designers who engaged in RI behavior involved both visual and verbal thinking: Participants B and J first generated ideas in their minds and notated them in written form, and then attempted to choose appropriate verbal concepts to use as keywords in a search engine to collect information from online sources. We found that the designers wrote several ideas on paper before seeking online information. The continual writing and keying actions can be regarded as the external representation of the verbal thinking used by the two designers. Thus, words can be considered to have strongly influenced ideation in these designers. However, images also partly affected the designers ideation: the designers who engaged in RI behavior created several new idea sketches when referring to online visual stimuli, suggesting that they added elements to or revised previous idea sketches when they were inspired by online stimuli. Table 6. Categories of Each Participant s Idea Sketch No.2 Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Category 4 Category 5 Category 6 No.8 No.9 No.10 THE SCIENCE OF DEGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

8 Visual thinking Creating new idea sketches Completing final idea sketch Figure 3. Ideation process of the designers engaged in behavior Verbal thinking Generating ideas in written form RI Keying in keywords in a search engine Creating new idea sketches Completing final idea sketch Visual thinking Figure 4. Ideation process of the designers engaged in RI behavior Therefore, this aspect of their ideation can be regarded as visual thinking. Based on this explanation, the two designers ideation is illustrated in Figure 4. As mentioned previously, designers using RI behavior tended to revise previous idea sketches after referring to online information. These visual stimuli may have been inspirational images that the designers used to adjust previous ideas and add elements to idea sketches they made after finding appropriate images in the online data. The figure indicates that the two designers ideas were inspired by the images and were mainly developed by revising previous ideas. For example, the designer may be inspired by Stimulus 1 to draw Idea Sketch1, after which the designer may develop a new concept by referring to Stimuli 2 and 3 and then revise the Idea Sketch 1 by adding elements, thereby creating Idea Sketch 2. Moreover, the designer may arrive at the final idea sketch 4, by revising and adding to previous sketches and referring to the online information Seeing-Moving-Seeing and Thinking-Moving- Seeing structure Based on the distinction between behavior and RI behavior, the well-known seeing-moving-seeing structure [7] can be used here to describe designers behavior. The behavior is composed of actions of seeing and moving that are all linked: browsing through reference books, looking at specific images or information, pasting memory stickers on targets, noting generated ideas on paper, starting to sketch, or continually browsing through reference books. By contrast, the keyword-base RI behavior exhibited by designers (refer to Fig.6) indicates that they had to determine which keywords to use before they entered the keywords in search engines to acquire the task-related data from websites at the beginning of their task. Designers might use previous experience to select an appropriate keyword for retrieving the information they require or even find online references unintentionally. Moreover, for collecting additional relevant information online, designers use new keywords that occur to them when referencing data gathered during their initial RI process, a process that enables progress toward the design solution. Thus, RI behavior in the digital environment indicates the importance of an ideation mechanism involving words and images for designers, which is consistent with the suggestion of Ozkaya and Akin [16] that design solutions require a dual representation of text-based and graphical information and necessitate a switch between requirement and design spaces. The translation between visualization and words may be mediated by the designers RI behavior, according to the picture-word cycle that was proposed by Dorner [17]. This also enhances the role of keywords, which could be regarded as major conceptual tools for initiating the early stage of the design process [18], and the action of entering 92 B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DEGN

9 keywords during RI behavior could be considered a thinking process that depends on the potency of the words that are input. This action appears to support the recollection search of Nagai and Noguchi [19], which indicates that designers search for ideas that are connected with the goal s description from memory serves as a constraint and gives direction to designers thinking. Therefore, designers may generate ideas during RI through verbal-visual interaction, and continually develop distinct ideas by viewing the retrieved visual stimuli and text information during RI behavior. Based on the observation of designers RI behavior, three action chains during ideation can be described as below: The first action chain may evoke the influence of the designers words or mental images on the input keywords. In accordance with the keyword-based RI behavior exhibited during designers ideation in the digital environment, the feature of thinking first indicates that designers must use previous experience to determine appropriate keywords. The second action chain may evoke the influence of the words or images that the designer collected on the seen words or images. The third action chain may evoke the influence of the words or images that the designer referred to online on written words or drawn sketches on the paper. Thus, the thinking-seeing-moving circle during the designer s ideation in the digital environment was verified by examining the designer s interactive association of images and words. Observation of the designers ideation flow indicates that the RI behavior often exhibited immediately after understanding the design problem. Thus, the results suggest that designers require RI behavior during ideation and that RI behavior may be regarded as a primary mover in the initial stage of ideation. Based on the discussions, the study proposes a primary structure to describe an iterative ideation flow in which keyword-based RI behavior in the digital environment is considered. The model is illustrated in Figure 6 and described as follows: (1)Thinking: During the thinking process, designers identify keywords related to the task s topic and enter them into a search engine or database to find relevant information. (2)Seeing: During the seeing process, designers view figures, pictures, or other reference materials collected in advance and may be inspired by them. (3)Moving: The moving process refers to the designers actions after seeing the stimuli, such as noting down ideas that they generated or drawing sketches that they mentally visualize, which may be affected by the stimuli that they retrieved. (4)The five arrows pointing from any process toward another process indicate that designers might re-exhibit those processes repeatedly. Therefore, the three processes form a circle during ideation, in which the designers repeat these activities until they determine a solution. Designers often accept visual stimuli shown concurrently to generate ideas, which is a feature that should be discussed and explored further in research related to design support systems. This finding also bolsters that research should be focused on computer environments that enhance designers capacity to capture, store, manipulate, manage, and reflect on the stimuli that they see. 4. Conclusions and Recommendations The study examined the characteristics of the referencing behavior in designers ideation by describing designers behavior (searching for information from printed material) and RI behavior (retrieving information on-line), the interactive and connective relationship between behavior and RI behavior and other behaviors. The study also conducted to evaluate how information obtained from printed references and information obtained from online sources influence designers ideation process differently, and to determine whether graphic designers ideation patterns change when designing in a digital environment. The study presents the main findings: First, we found that images influenced ideation more strongly on the designers who referred to printed materials, whereas words affected ideation to a greater degree in the designers who referred to online data. (a) The designer actively thought about the keywords from her mind for inputting the keywords in a searching. (b) The designer actively linked some specific words or images on-line for seeking for appropriate reference. (c) The designer looked at some specific words or images on-line for writing down the generated ideas or making the sketches. Figure 5. Description of Participant 10 s RI Behavior Thinking Seeing Moving Figure 6. Ideation Structure of the Designers Who Engaged in RI Behavior THE SCIENCE OF DEGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

10 The finding suggests that two distinct ways of thinking, visual and verbal, can be used to describe ideation in the designers who referred to printed materials and in designers who referred to online information, respectively. Second, the designers who referred to printed material were found to generate more diverse dimensions of idea sketches than the designers who gathered information online, suggesting that the and RI designers mainly developed ideas horizontally and vertically when inspired by printed and on-line stimuli, respectively. Finally, we proposed a thinking-seeing-moving structure to describe designers ideation pattern in the digital environment based on considering the keyword-based information retrieving behavior (RI). This proposal could enhance the meaning and influence of words in the thinking used by designers during ideation. For this reason, the RI behavior observed during designers ideation in the digital environment highlights the importance of a mechanism supporting designers ideation that includes words and images. However, the number of participants in this study was limited in observations because the analytical procedures and the analysis of each participant s observational data were time consuming processes. The massive amount of analytical information made it unfeasible to provide a statistically sufficient number of subjects. Thus, the number of participants could be increased gradually in future studies to confirm the results of this study. 5. Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges the support for this research provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology under Grants No.MOST H , and Tatung University under Grants No.B103-V The author also thanks the ten graphic designers who participated in this study, and the two researchers who participated in the analytic section. References 1. Dorst K, Cross N. Creativity in the design process: co evolution of problem solution. Design Studies 2001; 22(5): Suwa M, Gero J, Purcell T. Unexpected discoveries and S-invention of design requirements: important vehicles for a design process. Design Studies 2000; 21(6): Verstijnen IM, Hennessey JM, Leeuwen C, Hamel R, Goldshmidt G. Sketching and creative discovery. Design Studies 1998; 19(4): McGown A, Green G, Rodgers P. Visible ideas: information patterns of conceptual sketch activity. Design Studies 1998; 19(4): Goldschmidt G. On visual design thinking: the vis kids of architecture. Design Studies 1994; 15(2): Herbert D. Architectural and study drawings. Van Nostrand Reinhold: New York, Schön DA, Wiggins G. Kinds of seeing and their function in designing. Design Studies 1992; 13(2): Goldschmidt G, Smolkov M. Variances in the impact of visual stimuli on design problem solving performance. Design Studies 2006; 27(5): McCoy MJ, Evans GW. The potential role of the physical environment in fostering creativity. Creativity Research Journal 2002; 14(3-4): Cheng PJ, Yen J. Connective Relationship between Representations and Stimuli in Designers. Proceedings of DesignEd Asia Conference 2008, Hong Kong. 11. Petre M, Sharp H, Johnson JH. Complexity through combination: an account of knitwear design. Design studies 2006; 27(2): Schön DA. The reflective practitioner. Temple-Smith: London, Finke RA, Ward TB, Smith SM. Creative cognition-theory, research and applications. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, Amabile TM. Creativity in context. Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado, Kaptelinin, V. Activity therory: Inplications for humancomputer interaction. In B.A. Nardi (Ed.). Context and consiciousness:activity theory and human-computer interaction. Cambridge. MA:MIT Press, Ozkaya I, Akin Ö. Requirement-driven design: assistance for information traceability in design computing. Design Studies 2006; 27(3): Dorner D. Approaching design thinking research. Design Studies 1999; 20(5): Jonson B. Design ideation: the conceptual sketch in the digital age. Design Studies 2005; 26(6): Nagai Y, Noguchi H. How designers transform keywords into visual images. The Proceedings of the forth Conference on Creativity and Cognition 2002; B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DEGN