Assessing the quality of ideas from prolific, early-stage product ideation
Author(s)
Kudrowitz, Barry Matthew
Wallace, David
Date Issued
March 2011
Journal
International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology, 22nd,
Publisher
ASME International
Citation
Kudrowitz, Barry Matthew, and David R. Wallace, "Assessing the quality of ideas from prolific, early-stage product ideation," ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (EIDTC 2010), August 15–18, 2010, Montréal, Québec. (New York: ASME, 2010): p. 381-91 doi 10.1115/DETC2010-28991 ©2010 Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The goal of many idea generation techniques, such as brainstorming, is to generate a large quantity of ideas with the hopes of having a few outstanding novel ideas that are worth pursuing. The output of such sessions is a large number of rough concept sketches, which require a rapid means of screening to select a manageable set of promising ideas. In this study we develop and test metrics for evaluating large quantities of early-stage product idea sketches. In total, 1767 ideas for three different product themes were used as a test bed. With our findings, we suggest three independent qualities that fully describe an innovative product idea: creative (as a subjective judgment), useful (as defined as having practical applications), and feasible (as determined by experts). Reviewers' subjective ratings of idea creativity had a strong correlation with ratings of idea novelty (r2=.80), but negligible correlation with idea usefulness (r2=.16). The clarity of sketch positively influenced ratings of idea creativity. Another interesting finding is that the quantity of ideas generated by the individual subjects had a strong correlation with that subject's overall creativity scores (r2=.82) and novelty scores (r2=.85), but had weak correlations with that subject's usefulness scores (r2=.38). ©2010
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
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Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2010-28991
