User Needs for Digital Creativity Support Systems in an Occupational Context

In a two-step study, an interview followed by an online questionnaire, we investigated the potential and user needs for systems that can support humans in the context of creative work. We found that participants usually follow a general creative process in problem identification, preparation, idea generation and idea evaluation, while frequently jumping and iterating between those phases. Interviewees as well as survey participants had greater difficulties in divergent thinking as opposed to convergent thinking and used convergent thinking more often in their daily work. Since advice from colleagues was most frequently sought out during the idea generation phase, this phase provides the greatest opportunity for a creativity support system. Most participants work primarily using computers and digital tools, both alone as well as in teams. It was mentioned that especially information research can be very time consuming. Therefore, from a user’s point of view, development of an inspirational assistant that can facilitate research as well as collaboration in a digital way seems to be the most promising approach for creativity support systems for creative workers.