Collaborative digital environments to enhance the creativity of designers

Abstract

This study explores the interaction of the essential components of creativity and collaboration in a digitalenvironment in the design process. The framework is based on Amabile’s componential theory of creativ-ity, which is composed of three intra-individual components of creativity and the social environment. Thedigital environment as the social component of creativity provides the technical infrastructure for theanalysis of data related to creativity and collaboration. Protocol coding method is used for the analysisof the qualitative and quantitative data stored in The Modular Object Oriented Developmental LearningEnvironment (MOODLE) forum posts that were formed by the comments or critiques given during thecollaboration process by the team members, instructors or jury members. Findings indicate that thesocial environment component named as the reactivity to proposals is closely related to idea generationas the creative relevant process component and group interaction as the task motivation component.Furthermore, it is found that the number of sketches and design ideas produced through critiques arethe main design issues that enhance creativity in collaborative digital environments.