Inspiring co-evolution moves and creativity in design teams

Our aim was to understand the relationship between stimuli and inspiration among design team members during the co-evolution of problem and solution in the ideation phase of the design process. Case studies with follow-up interviews were conducted with two multidisciplinary student design teams. The results show that there is a clear relation between designers’ inspiration process and the use of stimuli. It shows that stimuli improve communication between designers, and thus help to support a frame of shared understanding. These two together enable a more fast-paced co-evolution process. We discovered differences between near future and far future focussed objectives for design teams, which includes more use of stimuli for shared understanding or inspiration. These findings together can ultimately support designers to be more effective and creative in future projects.