Incongruent Aesthetic Preferences in Design Collaboration: An Enabler or Barrier for Novelty and Appropriateness?

Abstract

This paper examines ways in which the congruent and incongruent aesthetic preferences of collaborators influence the production of novel and appropriate design outputs. Authors compared the novelty and appropriateness scores in urban furniture design outputs, produced from teamed-up, twenty-six designers who shared congruent aesthetic preference with their partners, and those who did not. Nine expert-judges assessed the novelty and appropriateness of the collaborative results, following the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). Two-way ANOVA indicates that the novelty scores between the two groups are not statistically different, but the appropriateness scores of the congruent aesthetic preference group are higher, than those of the incongruent aesthetic group. Based on in-depth interviews and theories of mental model and conflict, authors interpret that the results indicate that while congruent aesthetic preference facilitates the participants to build up a shared team mental model without affective and process conflicts, the incongruent aesthetic preference causes conflicts and misinterpretation, and thus hampers task performances, in the search for creative outputs. As another value of this paper, this study's theoretical frames and research methods have not been treated hitherto in previous creativity studies, thus the frames and methods may help and inspire the relevant future studies.