Feedback in concept development: Comparing design disciplines

Critical Analysis

It’s generally accepted that design requires both divergent and convergent thinking, both holistically across a project (in a broad sense) and continually across a project (in smaller bursts, and with smaller levels of divergence). Exploration of many different ideas is considered divergent, in that each creation moves away from both the previous creation and from the overall set of creations. The assumption, supported by research, is that at various points of the design process more ideas are better than fewer, and ideas are better when they are diverse rather than when they are similar. Convergent thinking is a down-selection and integration processes, where the diversity is reduced or compressed; this is a creative process of reflection and criticism, and is also an operational process based on externalities like the amount of time allotted for work. Convergence allows a project to become “finished,” as completion typically requires a single output that is presented as sound and endorsed.

In design education, students are encouraged to adopt a process that includes both exploration and compression. The authors argue that “innovative solutions are often traced to ideation, where diverse creative ideas are initiated and developed” (137). Innovation, here, is focused on the divergent nature of idea generation, implying that novelty emerges through broad exploration rather than narrow integration. They conclude that divergence should be encouraged throughout the design process, rather than just at the beginning, in order to maximize innovative output; innovation is a goal.

The authors further connect divergence and innovation with risk-taking, and argue that to pursue divergence is to potentially fail; educators should “provide feedback and develop course structures and assessments to allow for risk taking” (152). However, they also claim that “divergence is not equivalent to risk-taking nor does it lead to design failure” (153) and so the connection between exploration and risk remains unclear. What is made clear, however, is that “divergent thinking promotes exploring uncharted idea territories, which takes time, and has risks associated with it” (153). Is time what is at stake—are students who embrace risk potentially failing to complete their work, because divergence takes time? The authors noted that “the instructor sometimes asked students to evaluate risks of their design options, and encouraged them to make decisions early to get a commitment to one idea that would be completed on time… the instructor was trying to protect the students from failure [of] not getting the project done on time…” (148).

There is a loose and unclear connection between divergent work, a pursuit of innovation, taking risks, and completing work during the time allotted. In industry, innovation risk might be seen as making something novel, and what is at stake is a lack of consumer acceptance; or, an innovation risk may be seen as conducting explorations that don’t lead to something productive for subsequent convergence.

Studio projects in education are largely simulations; even when sponsored by a client, the pressures and realities of industry are tempered in school. As a result, there is essentially no risk of a lack of consumer adoption and wasted financial resources, as the student’s work will likely not be produced. Encouraging students to take risks, then, is to encourage them to explore without worry of incompletion. They are urged to try many things, in pursuit of developing something new and novel (“innovative”), and assessment related to completion will be eliminated as an externality. It follows that time is considered by educators to be most valuable as a resource when it is spent on pursuit of novelty: while the authors point out that both divergent and convergent thinking are required, failure is tied intimately to divergent exploration.