Promoting Creativity in the Computer Science Design Studio

Revolutionary advances in technologies will require computer science professionals who are able to develop innovative software solutions. In order to identify techniques that can lead students to creative insights in their work, we have conducted an ethnographic study of the studio method as enacted in architecture, industrial design (ID), and human-computer interaction (HCI) classes. Our analysis of the activities conducted during studio critiques revealed that while the ID and architecture studios had a primary focus on experimentation, the primary emphasis of the HCI studios was on idea refinement. In this paper, we describe four barriers to creative thought observed in the HCI classrooms and identify ways that the architecture and ID instructors helped students to overcome similar challenges.