Can a Pre-sketching Activity Improve Idea Generation?

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of a pre-sketching activity on the quantity and novelty of the design solutions. A controlled experiment is used to investigate the influence of pre-sketching activity on quantity and novelty of the concepts. Two student groups sketched solutions for the same design problem; with one group given a pre-sketch activity before the design problem. Results reveal that this short pre-sketching activity positively affects the novelty of the solutions of the design problem (p-value=0.05 for novel means). Further, while the findings suggest that the pre-sketching activity resulted in more concepts generated, this was not found to be statistically significant (p-value=0.22). Therefore, it is recommended that idea generation methods be augmented with short pre-sketching activities before the sessions.