This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of using a social science mixed-methods approach to stimulate creativity and improve the attainment of creative outcomes in teaching design. In a focused study framed through a design collaborative experiment within a classroom context, sketches produced by a sample of 351 students were analyzed and the impact of stimuli was categorized by visual, physical, quantitative and contextual information on creative processes and outcomes in product design. Sixteen combinations of these stimuli were integrated as parameters of design briefs (DBs) given to the participating students. This research was augmented with a survey to understand participants’ perceptions and reactions and was rated by expert judges. The results demonstrate that certain combinations of quantitative and qualitative stimuli have a positive impact on creative processes and outcomes. These findings will inform new techniques for engaging and inspiring students in design studies.

This academic-based investigation is focused on identifying elements that contribute toward the generation of efficient design briefs and their correlation with design outcomes of a sketching exercise. Four conditions are compared: a baseline group, an abstract group, a contextual information group, and a group that was given various example solutions. Via more in-depth surveys, we sought to elicit correlations between the students’ design creativity and stimuli permutations of the different design conditions. Results show that the contextual information groups, which were presented with higher levels of stimulus fidelity, had higher novelty scores, while abstract groups performed well in usefulness. These findings contribute to the formulation of design briefs where the goal is to stimulate the creativity of design outcomes and examine their relationships with student's perceptions of design exercises.