Overcoming Satisficing: Scaffolds for Amplifying Creativity

Abstract

Creative work combines exploratory thinking to find novel solutions and exploitative thinking to refine those solutions. People often assume that the idea they come up with has to be the "correct solution," leading to under-exploration and preemptive exploitation. Despite advances in the practitioner literature, a cognitive and empirical basis of exploration strategies remains sparse. My dissertation examines scaffolding methods to enhance exploration in creative tasks. I investigate this through two interventions at different stages of the creative process. First, interactive guidance and adaptive suggestions embodied in the CritiqueKit system to improve evaluation of creative work. Second, problem-framing scaffolds that attune people towards the phases of exploration and exploitation during ideation. My research demonstrates content and process scaffolds with applications in the design of creativity support tools and creative education pedagogy.