Keywords

1 Introduction

Digital media design has become one of the main areas for graphic designers, especially in the last 20 years with the growth of the Internet and more recently with the use of applications in smartphones. In general, digital media design has been thought of together with print media design, within a Graphic Design course or in a specific Digital Design course. Although the knowledge required to design both digital and print-based projects may be similar in various principles and theories, they differ in many aspects, especially the ones related to technology and to the user experience.

While in print-based design the user interaction is usually both simple and well known, in digital design, the way people interact with products is usually more complex, less linear and less predictable. Therefore, the way print designers create projects may be different from digital designers. One of the reasons may be explained by the fact that in digital design users are commonly more included during the project development (being observed and/or tested) than in print-based design projects.

This may interfere directly in the creativity of designers while dealing with different type of media. Although different methods of project development have been investigated by researchers in both print and digital design, it seems that the difference in approach is not so clear. There are many studies that investigate the effectiveness of digital tools and systems in supporting creativity [1, 2]. Other studies compare print-based products with digital media products [3, 4]. However, it seems that few studies discussed the impact that the differences in these media can have in designers’ creativity while designing projects.

Creativity is a subject that has been studied by researchers of different knowledge areas (e.g. art, business, literature, science); can refer to different things (e.g. person, process, product, environment), and has different definitions [5]. It is also characterized as a complex activity that consists ‘of a special form of problem solving’ [6]. Csikszentmihalyi [7] claims that creativity is manifested when a person has “a new idea or sees a new pattern, and when this novelty is selected by the appropriate field for inclusion in the relevant”.

A usual definition of creativity was coined by Amabile [8], and this is also used in the present study. “Creativity is simply the production of novel, appropriate ideas in any realm of human activity, from science, to the arts, to education, to business, to everyday life” [8, p. 40]. She also explains that creativity is the first step in innovation. By innovation is meant the successful implementation of novel and appropriate ideas to the problem or opportunity presented [8].

The aim of this study is to discuss creativity in designing digital media products. A brief description is presented of the main characteristics and aspects of creativity in design and of creativity in digital design. It especially looks at the differences between creativity in digital design and in print-based design, focusing on three differences: the user-centred design approach, design guidelines, and designers’ knowledge of digital technology. It discusses the impact that these differences in these media can have on the designers’ creativity while designing projects.

2 Creativity in Design

Creativity in design can be considered “a matter of developing and refining together both the formulation of a problem and ideas for a solution” [9]. Creativity in design has been investigated from different approaches and perspectives.

Shneiderman [10], in his study on creativity in user interfaces, divides the literature on creativity into three different perspectives: inspirationalist, structuralist, and situationalist. Inspirationalist focuses on ‘moments in which a dramatic breakthrough magically appears’. According to Shneiderman [10], for the inspirationalists ‘creative work starts with problem formulation and ends with evaluation plus refinement’. Inspirationalists emphasize creativity by using ‘visual exploration of data and discovery of new visually stimulating aspects of data representation’ [11].

The second group, the structuralists, use orderly methods of problem solving. An example of an orderly method has been proposed by Polya [12], who identifies four principles of problem solving: understand the problem, devise a plan, carry out the plan, and look back. Structuralists can be characterized as rationalists, systematics, evaluators, among others [11].

Finally, the situationalists emphasize the social and intellectual context as a key part of the creative process. Shneiderman explains that situationalists usually talk about the influence of family, teachers, and others. An example of a situationalist is Csikszentmihalyi [7], who identifies three components of creativity: domain, field, and individual person. Shneiderman [10] claims that situationalists consider vital user interfaces the ones that ‘support access to previous work in the domain, consultation with members of the field, and dissemination of results to interested members of the field’. While situalionalists emphasize collaboration in problem-solving, both inspirationalists and structuralists relate creativity with the individual problem solver [11].

Creativity in design can happen in various different manners. Designers may use tools or techniques in order to promote creativity, such as flow diagrams, mind maps, sketching initial ideas, brainstorming association, characterization and narratives [13].

It has been argued that in order for a design product to be considered creative, it needs to meet some characteristics in terms of creativity. Demirkan and Afacan [14] divide the characteristics of creativity into three main terms: novelty (e.g. new, novel, unique, original, different), elaboration (e.g. integrated, adequate, deliberate, sensible, coherent), and affective aspects (e.g. appealed, delighted, pleasant).

Creativity is also considered by some authors to be one of the stages in the design method. For example, Murari [15] divides design method into 10 stages: problem, definition of the problem, problem components, data collection, data analysis, creativity, materials and technology, experimentation, prototypying, verifying, and technical drawings. Creativity is the fifth stage and is related to how to put things together in the right way. According to Munari [15], creativity does not mean improvisation without method. He explains that instead of ‘idea’ he included creativity in the method. He claims that an idea provides the ready solution, whereas creativity helps to generate meaningful operations based on data analysis before deciding on a solution.

With a different approach, Karjaluoto [16], in his book ‘The design method: a philosophy and process for functional visual communication’, describes the design method in four main stages: discovery, planning, creative, and application. According to the author, the creative stage is related to the exploration of conceptual options and potential design directions, as well as ‘organizing these possibilities into a clear vision’.

Creativity can be influenced by the designer’s previous knowledge. Chan [17] calls attention to the fact that cognitive scientists found that new ideas came from the creator’s prior knowledge and experience. He points out that although prior experiences can be a source of inspiration and help in the creation of new ideas, they can also make it difficult for designers to think of different approaches.

Researchers of artificial intelligence have been developing models of creative design [18, 19]. Gero [19] discusses a model with five creative design processes: combination, mutation, analogy, first principles and emergence. He explains that the combination process involves the addition of two design prototypes or subsets of them. This means that in a combination process creative design may occur when new configurations are created from features of existing designs [20]. Mutation “is the alteration of a structure variable by an external agent” [19]. According to Gero [19], mutation is interesting in creative design as it can be used to produce new variables (e.g. a length is mutated into a length and an angle).

The third design process explained by Gero [19] is the analogy process. According to him, analogy ‘is defined as the product in which specific coherent aspects of the conceptual structure of one problem are matched with and transferred to another problem’. Another design process is called ‘first principles’. First principles are causal, qualitative or computational knowledge used to ‘relate function to behaviour and behaviour to structure without the use of compiled knowledge’. He explains that it can be difficult to design using first principles, as this does not predict the use of compiled knowledge. However, Cross [20] claims that designing from first principles is at the centre of understanding design. This is because it assumes the theoretical position that designing starts with identifying requirements until the creation of appropriate forms or structures.

The last process proposed by Gero [19] is called emergence. The emergence process is related to the fact that ‘extensional properties of a structure are recognised beyond its intentional ones’. Deleting one or more structural variables and replacing them with others characterizes the emergence process. He claims that emergence plays an important role in design as it is often observed in the behaviour of designers.

Understanding these processes is relevant for designers, as they can be more creative and explore design solutions better when they have more knowledge on how creativity works. Dorst and Cross [9] claim that studying creative design is problematic as it is not possible to know during the design process when a creative ‘event’ will occur, and it is difficult to identify when a solution idea is creative. However, they argue that creativity can be found in every design project – “if not in the apparent form of a distinct creative event, then as the evolution of a unique solution possessing some degree of creativity” [9].

3 Creativity in Digital Design

Digital Design is, in this study, the design of digital things, such as applications, electronics, software, websites, and video games. Digital media projects require from designers that they have an understanding of the audience, the technology and how to communicate in a captivating way. In addition, they have to consider, among other aspects, that people can be anxious when navigating in unknown networks [13].

Digital design is considered a new medium, which means the translation of all existing media into computer-accessible numerical form [21]. Among the main characteristics of the new media are: interactive, hypertextual, virtual, networked, and simulated [22].

Manovich [21], describes five principles of new media: (1) numerical representation (i.e. all new media objects are composed of digital code), (2) modularity (or “fractal structure of new media”; a new media object has the same modular structure throughout), automation (i.e. automated operations in media creation, manipulation and access. This allows that humans can, at least in part, be removed from the creative process), (4) variability (i.e. mutable or liquid – a new media object can exist in different, potentially infinite, versions), (5) transcoding (i.e. translating something into another format - cultural categories and concepts are replaced by new ones derived from computer ontology, epistemology and pragmatics).

Creativity in digital media can be affected by these principles, bringing new challenges for the project. Therefore, designers of digital media should consider these principles when creating new projects. For example, the variability of a digital project, also called a ‘dynamic characteristic’ [13], means that designers should consider that the project may not be finished when delivered. This is because digital projects can be updated, expanded and modified [13]. This also means that users can interfere in the product, participating in and modifying it, so they are considered co-authors of the project [23].

Thinking of how designers could create digital media projects with excellence, Shneiderman [24] created a framework for generating excellence, called Genex (revised in 2000). Shneiderman’s [10] framework aims to “assist designers in providing effective tools for users” and more specifically ‘to suggest improvements for Web-based services and personal computer software tools’. The framework has four phases: collect (i.e. learn from previous works), relate (i.e. consult with peers and mentors at different stages of the project), create (i.e. compose, explore and evaluate solutions), and donate (i.e. disseminate results).

Shneiderman [10] claims that ‘powerful tools can support creativity’ and that ‘creative work is not complete until it is disseminated’. The four phases of the framework lead to eight activities during the process: (1) searching and browsing digital libraries, (2) consulting with peers and mentors, (3) visualizing data and processes, (4) thinking by free associations, (5) exploring solutions, (6) composing artefacts and performances, (7) reviewing and replaying session histories, and (8) disseminating results. Shneiderman’s framework is relevant as it highlights powerful tools that can assist creativity in digital design. As he claims, these activities and their integration can indeed ‘produce an environment that greatly facilitates creativity’.

Many authors agree that, in order to create useful and successful interfaces, it is important to include the user in the creation process [25, 26]. For instance, Shneiderman and Plaisant [27] affirm that both costs and development time are dramatically reduced by careful attention to user-centred design (UCD) issues during the early stages of software development.

The UCD approach has been used since the early 80s [28]. According to Draper and Norman [25], in the UCD approach, the purpose of the system is to serve the user and not a specific technology. In addition, they said that the design of the interface should be dominated by the needs of the users and that “the needs of the interface should dominate the design of the rest of the system”. For the purpose of this study, UCD (also known as user experience design, user interface design, human-centred design among others) is a method of developing digital products in which users are involved in all stages of product development [29].

Researchers have proposed different models of UCD. For example, Mandel [28] describes a four-phase interface design process: analyse, design, construct, validate. With a different model, Gulliksen et al. [26] identified six main phases in a user-centred design process: vision, analyse, design for usability, evaluate, feedback, evaluate and construct.

A well-known method that also uses the user-centred approach is design thinking. A Design Thinking process also known as Human-Centred Design has been proposed by the IDEO design company [30] and has been used by professionals and researchers from different fields, such as business [31]. According to Tim Brown, this process integrates “the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success” [30].

The Design Thinking process has three main phases: listening (i.e. collecting stories and inspiring people), creating (i.e. translating what you have heard from people into structures, opportunities, solutions and prototypes) and delivering (i.e. costs and revenues, capacity assessment, and implementation planning) [32]. The project team goes through two types of action: concrete (e.g. observing people) and abstract (e.g. discovering ideas and themes) [32].

The human-centred design process suggests that projects need to be developed in multidisciplinary teams and that team members should infiltrate the homes and work of the people for whom they are creating. The importance of mixing different educational backgrounds in the project team is that the chance of unexpected solutions increases. Therefore, this method may assist the creative process of digital designers. Although processes used for enhancing creativity in digital design can be used for other media such as print design, there are some differences in these media that must be stressed. The next topic discusses some issues related to creativity in digital design, in contrast to creativity in print design.

4 Creativity in Digital Design vs. Creativity in Print-Based Design

Digital design is considered a new medium design while print-based design is considered a traditional medium, or analogical medium. Some of the differences between digital and analogical media are: digital media tend to be dynamic, are stored in the computer’s memory, and can be replicated without loss of quality, whereas analogical media tend to be fixed, exist as physical objects, and lose quality when copied [13, 22].

Among the advantages of the new media over the analogical media are that they are more easily handled, have fast access and are of non-linear form, and can be compacted in small places [22]. It has been also argued that digital design involves lower resolutions, requires an understanding of usability principles, emphasizes function over form more than in print-based material [33].

Comparisons between print design (analogical media) and digital design are not new. To show an example, in 1987, James Hartley [34] wrote an article about the role of print-based research in designing electronic text. He drew attention to the fact that although research on printed texts might guide research on electronic text in some cases, there are other areas that need new research. He focused his discussion on three areas: the layout of instructional text, the role of typographic cueing, and the presentation of graphic materials.

Another example is the comparison made by Nielsen [35]. He discusses the differences between print design and web design. He argues that “anything that is a great print design is likely to be a lousy web design”. He complements this by saying that different design approaches need to be used “to utilize the strengths of each medium and minimize its weaknesses”. According to Nielsen [35] the main differences between print and web design are dimensionality, navigation, response time, resolution, canvas size, multimedia, interactivity, and overlays.

More recent studies have also compared print and digital design for the same type of product. For example, Ihlström, Åkesson, Nordqvist [36] investigated the differences between designing newspaper in print and digital media. They found that among the preferred characteristics from print newspapers were: “clear overview of the content, including a beginning and an end, the ease of use, typography and design”. On the other hand, online newspapers’ preferred characteristics were: their continuous updates, the possibility searching, hyperlinks and interactivity with the readers, among others.

These studies briefly summarized above illustrate some of the discussion and research on the differences between print-based design and digital design. However, the focus of this study is to discuss the differences in the designers’ creativity in designing for print-based products and designing for digital products. As mentioned, there are many differences between these two media and these may cause differences in the creativity of designers. This study does not cover all the differences between the two media. Instead, this discussion focuses on three differences between digital and print-based design: user-centred design approach, design guidelines, and designers’ knowledge of digital technology.

4.1 User-Centred Design Approach

As mentioned above (topic 3), the digital design process usually requires a user-centred approach. This kind of approach is not so commonly used in print-based products. In the usual approach to designing print products, designers study the material that they will work with, the needs of the clients, costs of production, and visual and functional aspects of the product.

Including users since the beginning of the project seems to have a number of advantages for the development of the project, such as getting to know some users’ habits (e.g. the type of applications they use, their frequency), if they would like to use the project under development, and what they think about the product’s competitors. During different stages users may also help to choose hierarchies, labels - by applying, for example, a card-sorting technique (i.e. a method in which users are required to organize topics into categories and to help to choose labels) - and to test the prototype in order to verify the product’s accessibility and usability.

However, this method may cause some problems for designers’ creativity. This is because consulting users in different phases of the project may interfere in spontaneous creation and prevent some ideas from flourishing. Souto and Santos [29] made a study on the effectiveness of the user-centred design method with digital artists that were not used to this type of method. The results showed that although the use of user-centred design may help artists to create more usable interfaces and to understand users’ behaviour better, it seems that the method needs to be more flexible in terms of the development phases.

So, how to apply the user-centred design method without suffocating designers’ creativity? Of course, this answer depends on the project. However, it should be considered that allowing designers to be creative by encouraging them to spend time in the creative process and to use techniques to promote creativity could also help them to consider users’ insights in the project. Therefore, considering both users’ experience and creative approaches in the design process may help designers to be more creative and to design better products.

4.2 Design Guidelines

Design guidelines exist in both media: print and digital design. Design guidelines are, in this study, a set of general principles that aim to help designers to create efficient and effective products. Design guidelines may assist designers during their creative process by helping them to consider the best practices for designing a project. Different authors have been proposing design guidelines for print-based material for a long time, and many digital design guidelines come from print research.

The problems with guidelines (in general) has been discussed by a number of researchers [37, 38]. One of the main problems in relation to guidelines is that most of them are not based on research. Although some guidelines do not require research (e.g. consider who the users are), others do, and therefore if the latter are not based on research their validity is questionable. Some guidelines are based on the experience of professionals in the area and have never been tested. Furthermore, some guidelines are based on research in different media (e.g. paper) and may not be appropriate for the digital medium. Another guideline problem is the fact that there are contradictory guidelines from different authors.

Answering the question on why designers should not apply what they know about designing for print to screen design, Dyson [39] explains that it depends on how specific the knowledge is. According to her, when dealing with general principles like consistency and ease of navigation it is probable that these have a universal application; however, while dealing with specific legibility issues designers need to be careful about generalising the principles. For example, while many guidelines recommend that line lengths in print should not exceed about 70 characters per line [39], in screen empirical research Dyson and Haselgrove [40] have found that long lines (about 100 characters) may not cause a problem in reading.

Another difference between the guidelines for print design and for digital design may be related to accessibility aspects. In digital design, accessibility guidelines, especially in websites - for example, the well-known Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [41] - have been discussed, and accessibility seems to be one of the main issues considered when creating digital products. However, in print-based design accessibility issues seem to be less considered [42]. Cornish et al. [42] claims that print-based design presents particular challenges with regard to accessibility, such as the fact that print design cannot be modified by the user in the way digital design can (e.g. increasing the size of the fonts). Cornish et al., in a survey study with graphic designers and clients, found that these groups do not communicate effectively about visual accessibility and there is a need to develop tools to help designers with accessibility issues.

Therefore, it is possible to conclude that guidelines for designing digital products should be specific to the type of media for which the project is being designed. Designers should be careful with the origin of guidelines, with the initial purpose of the guideline, and also if they are based on scientific research. It is also important to highlight that guidelines applied to one type of product may not be suitable to other type, even with products within the same medium. For example, guidelines for applications may not be suitable for designing web interfaces. Besides, it is important to consider that designers with experience in websites may not be prepared for designing applications [33].

Another problem with guidelines, especially the ones for smartphone applications, seems to be the fact that they may disturb the creative process of designers, as they have many constraints and may make the applications look similar [43]. So, how can designers create innovative visual interface applications and meet the guidelines proposed by digital companies? One way of trying to avoid creating interfaces similar to those of the competitors is to do research on information visualization systems. There are many different information visualization tools being created, and they may help designers to create effective interfaces and at the same time make the designer more innovative.

Despite the problems with guidelines discussed above, design guidelines can be quite useful for helping creativity in design, as they may assist designers to choose the best solution.

4.3 Designers’ Knowledge of Digital Technology

It is important to consider the knowledge and skills needed in each type of medium design. Dyson [39] affirms that graphic designers who design printed material have knowledge from various sources, such as ‘practical design experience, design training, reading literature, looking at other designers’ work,’ whereas web page designers may have knowledge from this traditional material but also have ‘background in Information Technology or related disciplines’.

For designers, one of the major differences between print design and digital design may be the understanding of the technology required by each project. It seems that it is easier for a print designer to understand the whole development process of print material, such as a book, from the beginning until it is printed than for a digital designer to follow the development process of software until it is delivered. For example, print book designers usually conclude their work (preparing the file to print) and send it to a printing company. Not much needs to be discussed with the printer. On the other hand, designers and programmers need to interact in various phases of the project in order to create a product with excellence. They both belong to the design process of the project. Therefore, they need to have good communication, clarity in the role of each one in the project, and a clear understanding of the technical possibilities of the project, among others.

On the one hand, software and applications have made it much easier for digital designers to create prototypes that look very close to the final product; on the other hand, the knowledge needed to implement the projects has become more complex. A multidisciplinary team, with designers, programmers and other professionals, is common in digital project development, and therefore the communication among the members of the team is very important. The creative process may be disrupted when the communication among members of the team is not clear [43]. Creativity in digital design may also be affected by the scarce technological knowledge of the designer.

This discussion leads to a question on how much designers should understand about the technology they are designing. The point here is not to make the designer self-sufficient in creating digital projects alone, but to draw attention to the need to teach designers enough knowledge, so that they can dialogue better with programmers and other members of the team. In addition, this knowledge will assist designers to be more creative, as they will know more about their possibilities, limitations and challenges.

5 Final Remarks

The discussion proposed in this study focused on three differences between creativity in digital design and creativity in print-based design: the user-centred design approach, design guidelines, and designers’ knowledge of digital technology. It also brought up some concepts and characteristics of creativity in design, and creativity in digital design. The reflection on the differences between print-based design and digital design seems to be very relevant, as there are many graphic designers that act in both media and therefore need to have an extensive understanding of these areas.

This discussion leads to some interesting questions: how to apply the user-centred design method without suffocating designers’ creativity? How can designers create innovative visual interface applications and meet the guidelines proposed by digital companies? And how much should designers understand about the technology they are designing?

The answers to these questions are briefly discussed (topic 4) in relation to the creative process of designers. Broader discussion and research is needed in order to provide deep and detailed answers to these questions. In addition, creativity in designing digital products is still a recent area of research, and therefore many studies are needed in order to understand how digital designers create innovative products and also to help them create useful and successful products.