Creativity and Rationale

Abstract

Creativity and rationale comprise an essential tension in design. They are two sides of the coin; contrary, complementary, but perhaps also interdependent. Designs always serve purposes. They always have an internal logic. They can be queried, explained, and evaluated. These characteristics are what design rationale is about. But at the same time designs always provoke experiences and insights. They open up possibilities, raise questions, and engage human sense making. Design is always about creativity. This book presents a set of research papers addressing the topic of creativity and rationale in software design. This introductory chapter presents an account of the workshop and review process through which the papers were developed, and thumbnail summaries of the individual papers. Creativity and rationale connote two faces of design that are sometimes viewed as complementary, or even opposed: envisioning new worlds through intuitive strokes of innovation versus analyzing reasons and tradeoffs to guide the development of new artifacts and systems. Because it is frequently the case that different practitioners and researchers, and different design disciplines, prize one or the other more highly, there is not only a contrast, but also a lack of integration between creativity and rationale.