Comparing Creativity, User-experience and Communicability Linked to

Digital Tools during the Fuzzy Phases of Innovation

Mille Charles, Christmann Olivier, Fleury Sylvain and Richir Simon

Arts & M

etiers Sciences et Technologies, LAMPA, HESAM Universit

e, F-53810 Chang

e, France

Keywords:

Creativity, Communicability, User Experience, Virtual Reality, Sketching, Computer Aided-Design, Ideation,

Immersive Sketching, Immersive CAD.

Abstract:

Innovation is deﬁned by a range of activities having different goals but driven by the same purpose. For

example, in the ending phases, the aim will be to put forward precise concepts, while upstream of innovation,

the activities are deﬁned by the will to investigate the subject and increase the area of knowledge and concepts

helpful for the conception of new products. This study takes place in the latter contexts because these are

the ones where tools are the most variable and de facto, the least normalised. Our aim was to study user

experience felt by the usage of these tools as well as their impact on creativity and ideas’ communicability. To

do this, we led an experimental study with 79 participants comparing four tools: pen & paper, Virtual-Reality

(VR) drawing, VRCAD, and traditional CAD. Thanks to the UEQ (Laugwitz et al., 2008) and judges method

of Cropley and Cropley (2008), we measured the user-exprience and the creativity. Then we compared the

level of creativity, user-experience and communicability induced by each tool. The results reveal that the user

experience arising from the tool inﬂuences the amount and the quality of the ideas. Moreover, we show that

the fewer standardises interactions the tools have, the greater the communicability of ideas.

1 INTRODUCTION AND

RELATED WORKS

Innovation is a succession of activities allowing to

bring new concepts coming from a knowledge base

that is reﬁned as the project materialises (Le Masson

et al., 2006) and being realised by several persons

coming from different cultures (Dorta, 2004). The

Funnel model (Dunphy et al., 1996) of innovation de-

picts this reﬁnement of knowledge to emit concepts

which can be in ﬁne transmitted to design activities.

Upstream of innovation, activities will allow widen-

ing knowledge of the ﬁeld to enable new concept pro-

posals; at the end of these activities, generated con-

cepts are more precise. Midler (1995) demonstrated

in his model that the supply of knowledge in a project

limits the proposal ﬁeld’s freedom to transform it

into a concept. These activities of knowledge sup-

ply and evolution of ideas and models can be divided

and studied independently because they have speciﬁc

objectives. Lecossier and Pallot (2017) proposed a

three-fold segmentation of innovation: (i) ”strategy”

targets the angle of approach to produce new con-

cepts, (ii) ”ideation” creates new concepts and (iii)

”validation” selects the most concrete concept to give

to the design services. Ideation activities are those

that are the most equipped (Gabriel et al., 2016), but

there is no consensus on the design, experience, or

ergonomics of these tools. Amabile (1983) showed

that idea development is inﬂuenced by internal mark-

ers (e.g., competences, knowledge, motivation, etc.)

and external ones (e.g., allowed resources, environ-

ment, etc.). It seems important to evaluate the cre-

ative experience as it will allow to justify tool choice

according to ideation activity requirements. Assess-

ing the user experience will complete the evaluation

of the tools and help to understand the needs of the

users during creative activities. Several studies have

proposed tools to assess the ideation or creative po-

tential of an organisation (Lecossier and Pallot, 2017)

or a tool (Cherry and Latulipe, 2014), which can help

innovation managers in making their choice. How-

ever, these tools do not provide keys to measure the

transmission of ideas between stakeholders, which is

essential for innovation.

Still today, Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools,

by their place in design activities, are frequently used

for the proposition of new models or concepts (Fucci,

2011). Nevertheless, Kosmadoudi et al. (2013) had

shown that professional digital tools have low creativ-

Charles, M., Olivier, C., Sylvain, F. and Simon, R.

Comparing Creativity, User-experience and Communicability Linked to Digital Tools during the Fuzzy Phases of Innovation.

DOI: 10.5220/0009894300870095

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications (CHIRA 2020), pages 87-95

ISBN: 978-989-758-480-0

ity performance. These creative problems are due to

their complexity and level of abstraction that ”lock”

users into usage strategies. These tools do not en-

courage new initiatives, reduce risk taking and ﬁnally,

user creativity. The transition from ideas to a CAD

concept does not allow a perfect maturation of ideas.

It seems necessary to simplify tools and/or use game

mechanisms to provoke interest and wish to explore

tool possibilities. Adding steps, thanks to new tools,

might be the solution, if the tools have a beneﬁt com-

pared to traditional tools (Dorta, 2004). To that ex-

tent, virtual reality tools seem to agree with these con-

straints, as several studies had demonstrated the in-

terest of virtual reality for innovation. For instance,

Rieuf (2013) demonstrated that his virtual drawing

application allowed users to better recognise the emo-

tions the designers had associated with their mod-

els. In their study comparing differences of creativ-

ity between a pen & paper drawing and virtual draw-

ing, Yang et al. (2018) demonstrated that the virtual

application allowed the proposition of more diver-

gent ideas. Feeman et al. (2018) compared CAD and

Virtual-Reality CAD (VRCAD) for creativity. Their

study highlighted the utility of virtual reality for quick

product conception during simple creativity tasks. Fi-

nally, Calderon-Hernandez et al. (2019) highlight that

immersive representations of a construction are more

comprehensible than a 2D drawing. Immersive tools

seem to have the potential to enhance conception

tasks by adding new features (Fleury et al., 2020).

Through this study, we want to demonstrate the po-

tential of immersive tools for creativity.

The present study allowed us to compare the ”cre-

ative potential” of four tools : pen & paper, CAD, VR-

CAD, and Virtual-Reality (VR) drawing. We chose to

compare these tools according to Dorta’s 2004 study

claiming that there are not enough steps between an

idea design with a simple tool, like a pen and paper,

and a CAD software. Thus, our study will allow us to

compare virtual-reality tools to traditional ones, based

on the quantity and the quality of ideas and user ex-

perience. We suppose that the stimulating, clear, and

hedonic aspect of a tool will enable a better idea pro-

duction (Rieuf, 2013; Feeman et al., 2018; Yang et al.,

2018). By contrast, we hypothesise that standardisa-

tion of interactions will enable users to present more

formalised ideas, which will be more understandable

and therefore will have better communicability.

To study relationships between user experience,

creativity and communicability, we designed a cre-

ative task with four different kinds of tools: a pen

& paper, VR drawing, VRCAD, and CAD. We mea-

sured, through a questionnaire, user experience and

communicability. Cropley and Cropley’s method was

used to assess creativity of ideas. Measured creativity,

and communicability were linked to user experience.

2 METHOD

For this study, 79 participants were recruited. They

were all trained in the use of CAD software. Par-

ticipants included 66 (82.5%) men and 14 (17.5%)

women. The median age was 22 years old for a stan-

dard deviation of 4.33. The youngest of our panel

group was 17 years old; and the eldest was 46 years

old. Our panel was composed of students coming

from engineering training.

2.1 Materials

To compare different tools, possibly used for creativ-

ity, we selected four of them. For the two extreme

ones, we chose pen & paper and CAD. The pen & pa-

per is a tool that everyone knows how to use to draw

freely and that does not present any constraint of use.

For CAD software, we chose Solidworks that allows

3D concept modelling through standardised interac-

tions, with a mouse and keyboard, which enable the

export of ﬁles to other platforms. Moreover our panel

used to work with Solidworks.

We selected two intermediate tools in order to val-

idate the beneﬁts and impacts of virtual reality com-

pared to the aforementioned traditional tools. We

used the VR application Time2Sketch (see ﬁgure 1),

which works with an HTC Vive and computer with

Windows 10. This application allows the user to draw

in a 3D virtual environment. The user can ﬁnd a

colour, size and tone palette on the right. By ap-

proaching a controller to the palette, the user can se-

lect a colour, and by pushing the trigger, the user can

draw freely in the environment. One button is placed

behind the user to save the drawing and reset the en-

vironment. A 3D model of an umbrella is disposed

in front of the user. The umbrella can be moved by

grabbing it with the controllers.

The last tool is the immersive CAD application

Blocks (see ﬁgure 2). This tool uses some CAD

paradigms while maintaining freedom of movement,

interaction and visualisation that virtual reality can of-

fer.

2.2 Procedure

As ﬁgure 3 shows, the experiment has two parts: (i)

the ﬁrst measures the impact the selected tools have

on creativity and (ii) the second assesses the gener-

ated ideas communicability for each tool. This study

CHIRA 2020 - 4th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

Figure 1: VR drawing application: Time2Sketch.

Figure 2: VR CAD application: Google Blocks.

Figure 3: Representation of the experiment proceeding.

follows a between-subject experimental design, with

four groups of participants, one per tool. Even if the

drawing task was done on their own, the communi-

cability part was done in pairs. Participants had to

describe the idea of their partner.

At the beginning of the experiment, participants

ware invited to complete the ﬁrst questionnaire to col-

lect demographic data (gender, age), their ability to

use virtual reality and CAD software.

The ﬁrst phase of experimentation was dedicated

to the task of creativity. A training of around ﬁve

minutes was proposed to participants to help them

to get familiar with the tool they will use regarding

their group. As aforementioned, participants were se-

lected for their ability to use CAD software. Then

participants were invited to carry out a creative task

for ﬁfteen minutes which consisted in proposing as

many solutions as possible to add new functionalities

to an umbrella. Depending on the tool used, partici-

pants were given a non-editable 3D model or an A4

sheet paper with a representation of an umbrella from

different perspectives. Participants were asked to not

take into account any feasibility constraints. Ideas had

to be drawn and without text. After the creativity task,

participants were invited to complete the User Expe-

rience Questionnaire (Laugwitz et al., 2008). Follow-

ing this ﬁrst phase, each participant was invited to in-

terpret the ideas drawn by the other participant and to

write what she/he understood. Finally, the author of

the idea evaluated the other participant’s interpreta-

tion by giving a score from 1 to 9, depending on how

well it matched the idea. This mark established our

measure of idea communicability.

2.3 Measures

The following measures allowed us to make links be-

tween a tool’s user experience, creative quality, and

ideas communicability :

• Creativity

– Number of ideas produced.

– Quality of the ideas (a jury of three persons

helped to evaluate the proposed ideas’ quality.

Their rating was based on four axes : effective-

ness, novelty, elegance and genesis, according

to the method of Cropley and Cropley (2008)

through 23 items).

• User Experience : We used the User Experience

Questionnaire (UEQ) that measures the attractive-

ness, perspicuity, efﬁciency, dependability, stim-

ulation, and novelty of the tool used through 26

items (Laugwitz et al., 2008).

• Communicability : This measure corresponds to a

mark, from 1 to 9, assessing how well the other

participant’s interpretation matches the original

idea.

3 RESULTS

Before starting the analysis of our results, we ﬁrstly

deﬁned the characteristic of our data set. A Levene’s

test allowed us to verify the heteroscedasticity of all

the variables considered, imposing the use of non-

parametric tests.

We will ﬁrst report the results concerning the

number of ideas and their creative quality, relatively

Comparing Creativity, User-experience and Communicability Linked to Digital Tools during the Fuzzy Phases of Innovation

to each tool. Then we will present the user experi-

ence analysis, and we will ﬁnish with the study of the

communicability of ideas.

3.1 Creativity in Accordance with the

Tool

3.1.1 Number of Ideas Produced

A Kruskal-Wallis test revealed a statistically signif-

icant difference in the number of ideas per partici-

pant according to the tool (χ

= 44.69; p < 0.01). Ta-

ble 1 summarises pairwise comparisons using Mann-

Whitney tests and ﬁgure 4 shows that the CAD soft-

ware has a lower median score than the three other

tools. The virtual CAD software has a lower median

score than a pen and paper.

Table 1: Pairwise comparisons of the amount of ideas per

participant for each tool.

CAD pen &paper VR CAD

pen & paper < 0.01 ∗ ∗ - -

VR CAD 0.04* 0.038* -

VR Drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.908 < 0.01 ∗ ∗

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

Figure 4: Number of ideas per participant for each tool.

3.1.2 Creative Nature of Ideas

The idea quality analyses are based on the judge’s

method proposed by Cropley and Cropley (2008).

A Cronbach’s alpha test revealed acceptable internal

consistency (α = 0.802) between the rating of the

three judges.

First, we analysed the impact of tools on idea qual-

ity. A Kruskal-Wallis test (χ

= 29, 62; p < 0.01)

showed a signiﬁcant statistical difference in the qual-

ity of ideas according to the tool. Pairwise compar-

isons of table 2 showed signiﬁcant differences be-

tween CAD and each other tools, pen & paper and

each of the other tools. Figure 5 reveals that a pen &

paper have a higher score median than the other tools.

Table 2: Pairwise comparisons of global Cropley’s score

according to the tool.

CAD Pen/paper VR CAD

Pen & paper < 0.01 ∗ ∗ - -

VR CAD 0.012* 0.041* -

VR drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.017* 0.99

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

We then conducted a detailed analysis by consid-

ering the scores for the dimensions of effectiveness,

novelty, elegance, and genesis. Results of pairwise

comparisons are summarised in table 3, and boxplots

are presented in ﬁgure 5, for each dimension.

Table 3: Pairwise comparison of Cropley’s scores according

to the tool.

Effectiveness CAD Pen/paper VR CAD

Pen & paper < 0.01 ∗ ∗ - -

VR CAD 0.038* 0.01* -

VR drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.014* 0.894

Novelty

Pen & paper < 0.01 ∗ ∗ - -

VR CAD 0.011* 0.237 -

VR drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.07 1

Elegance

Pen & paper < 0.01 ∗ ∗ - -

VR CAD 0.034* 0.029 -

VR drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.067 0.854

Genesis

Pen & paper < 0.01 ∗ ∗ - -

VR CAD 0.956 < 0.01 ∗ ∗ -

VR drawing 0.21 0.126 0.176

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

Figure 5: Effectiveness, novelty, elegance, and genesis

scores in accordance with the tool.

For the effectiveness dimension, we observed a

statistically signiﬁcant difference between the tools

(χ

= 31.597; p < 0.001). Table 3 and ﬁgure 5 show

CAD had a meaningfully lower median of effective-

ness than each other tools. Pen & paper had a signiﬁ-

cantly higher effectiveness median than the VR draw-

ing.

CHIRA 2020 - 4th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

For novelty dimension, we noticed a statisti-

cally signiﬁcant difference between the tools (χ

22.664; p < 0.001). Table 3 shows signiﬁcant differ-

ences between CAD and each other tools. CAD has a

lower novelty median than the other tools (see ﬁgure

5).

For elegance dimension, we noticed a statisti-

cally signiﬁcant difference between the tools (χ

22.489; p < 0.001). Table 3 shows signiﬁcant differ-

ences between CAD and each other tools, pen & pa-

per, and VR CAD. Figure 5 shows CAD has a lower

median than the other tools, and VR CAD has a lower

median than pen & paper.

For the genesis dimension, we noticed a statisti-

cally signiﬁcant difference between the tools (χ

21.546; p < 0.001). Table 3 shows a signiﬁcant dif-

ference between CAD, and pen & paper, pen & paper

and VR CAD. Figure 5 shows that a pen & paper have

a higher median than CAD and VR CAD.

3.2 User Experience Analysis

We relied on the UEQ to measure the user experi-

ence induced by each tool. An initial analysis was

carried out on the different UEQ dimensions. Table

4 presents Cronbach’s alphas for the six UEQ dimen-

sions. To have signiﬁcant consistency, we removed

one item of stimulation and novelty. We had accept-

able internal consistency for perspicuity, novelty, and

stimulation. However, the internal consistency of efﬁ-

ciency, dependability and attractiveness was too weak

to analyse these items.

Table 4: Cronbach’s alphas for the differents UEQ cate-

gories.

Perspicuity Novelty Stimulation

0,76* 0,81 0,79

-0.19* 0.55*

Efﬁciency Dependability Attractiveness

-1,11* -2,9* -0,8*

* All items

A Kruskal-Wallis test revealed a statistically sig-

niﬁcant difference for perspicuity (χ

= 41.38; p <

0.01), novelty (χ

= 30.745; p < 0.01) and stimula-

tion (χ

= 32.89; p < 0.01) according to the type of

tool. Then, we carried out pairwise comparisons for

these 3 dimensions between each tool.

For the perspicuity dimension, table 5 shows sig-

niﬁcant differences between CAD tool and VR CAD,

VR drawing and CAD, pen & paper, and VR drawing.

Figure 6 shows that an immersive tool has a higher

median than the other tools for this UEQ dimension.

For the novelty dimension, table 5 shows signiﬁ-

Table 5: Pairwise comparisons for the UEQ dimensions.

Perspicuity CAD Pen & paper VR CAD

Pen & paper 0.06 - -

VR CAD < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.29 -

VR drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.19

Novelty

Pen & paper < 0.01 ∗ ∗ - -

VR CAD < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.835 -

VR drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.16 0.616

Stimulation

Pen & paper 0.405 - -

VR CAD 0.012* 0.408 -

VR Drawing < 0.01 ∗ ∗ < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.078

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

cant differences between CAD and the drawing tools

(VR CAD, and VR drawing). CAD was perceived as

less novel than other tools (see ﬁgure 6). This nov-

elty evaluation relates to the proﬁle and habits of us-

age of our participants, who mostly come from indus-

trial conception and engineering domains. Therefore,

CAD became the conventional tool, and the other

tools were perceived as more novel.

For the stimulation, table 5 shows signiﬁcant dif-

ferences between CAD and VR CAD and VR draw-

ing. Also, between pen & paper and VR drawing.

Immersive tools seemed to be more inspiring during

their usage (see ﬁgure 6).

Figure 6: Scores for the perspicuity, novelty and stimulation

of UEQ’s dimension in accordance with the tool.

These results support correlations between the

number of ideas proposed per participant and the

UEQ dimensions we considered (see table 6).

Table 6: Correlations between UEQ dimensions and the

number of ideas per participant.

p Correlation

Perpicuity < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.42

Novelty < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.40

Stimulation < 0.01 ∗ ∗ 0.40

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

Comparing Creativity, User-experience and Communicability Linked to Digital Tools during the Fuzzy Phases of Innovation

To conclude this analysis, we tested the correla-

tion between Cropley & Cropley dimensions and the

UEQ dimensions. Pearson correlation test revealed

existing correlations between UEQ perspicuity and

Cropley and Cropley global score and each of its di-

mensions. Correlations were found between UEQ

novelty and Cropley & Cropley elegance and genesis

(see table 7).

Table 7: Correlation between UEQ dimensions and Cropley

& Cropley scores.

Perspicuity Novelty

Total 0.26* -

Effectiveness 0.23* -

Novelty 0.28* -

Elegance 0.27* 0.26*

Genesis 0.28* 0.28*

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

3.3 Communicability

Regarding the communicability of the ideas gener-

ated, a Kruskal-Wallis test (χ

= 11.335; p = 0.01)

revealed a statistically signiﬁcant difference between

the tools. Table 8 shows substantial differences be-

tween pen & paper and CAD and between pen & pa-

per and VR drawing. Figure 7 revealed that a pen &

paper have a higher median than the CAD and VR

drawing and that a pen & paper and VR CAD have a

higher communicability level than the two other tools.

Table 8: Pairwise comparisons of communicability score in

accordance with the tool.

CAD Pen & paper VR CAD

Pen & paper 0.025* - -

VR CAD 0.807 0.187 -

VR Drawing 1 0.016* 0.794

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

Figure 7: Communicability scores following the tools.

Finally, we analysed if links could exist between

user experience measured by the UEQ and communi-

cability. Correlations were not signiﬁcant (table 9).

Table 9: Correlation between UEQ perspicuity, novelty and

stimulation, and communicability.

Perspicuity Novelty Stimulation

Correlation -0.057 0.18 0.036

∗p < 0.05; ∗ ∗ p < 0.01

4 DISCUSSION

The present study allowed us to compare possibili-

ties of creativity and communicability of four tools

(pen & paper, VR Drawing, VR CAD, CAD), each

one proposing a particular user experience or use case

during creative activities. The task was to sketch new

propositions of functionalities of an umbrella. We

chose to build a between-subject comparison in or-

der to compare the effect of a tool on creativity and

communicability of ideas.

4.1 Tools Inﬂuencing Creativity

Firstly, we measured the number of ideas generated

by the participants according to the tool used. Pen &

paper and VR drawing allowed participants to pro-

duce more ideas. This result can be explained by

their simplicity of use and the intuitiveness of their

different interactions. For both tools, the transition

from idea to drawing remains spontaneous and facili-

tates the production of multiple concepts. Indeed, the

VR drawing application enables the user to create 3D

sketches, thanks to VR controllers that can be used

as brushes, which makes the use simple and intuitive.

However, CAD software did not result in the produc-

tion of a large number of ideas. As an illustration,

participants of the CAD group said that a quarter of an

hour was too short to provide a single idea from a non-

editable model, despite their good knowledge of the

tool. In addition, several participants became stuck

without being able to produce a single idea. These

observations are in line with several studies proving

that CAD tools have a complicated interface that fa-

cilitates neither artistic creation nor creativity (Kos-

madoudi et al., 2013; Feeman et al., 2018; S

equin,

2005). It also conﬁrms Dorta’s conclusion (2008) that

CAD software should be used when the concept to be

designed is sufﬁciently detailed.

These observations are also supported by the user

experience reported for these four tools. A lower level

is observed for the perspicuity, stimulation, and nov-

elty dimensions. The low level of novelty observed

CHIRA 2020 - 4th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

with the CAD software was related to the usage habits

of the participants. This is consistent with the work of

Limayem and Hirt (2003), who demonstrated that tool

usage habits can favour the development and adop-

tion of strategies and minimise creativity. The low-

est CAD scores for perspicuity and stimulation were

related to a heavy interface and standardised interac-

tions, which do not simplify clarity and do not encour-

age users to be more creative.

We observed correlations between the number of

ideas and UEQ perspicuity, stimulation, and novelty.

Thus, as a better user experience was measured for

the least standardised tools, we assumed that the ease

of use allowed participants to generate more ideas and

go into further detail. We conclude that to encourage

creativity, it is better to have unusual tools and a light

and stimulating interface. These results are in line

with the ﬁndings of Gonc¸alves et al. (2015).

In addition to the number of ideas produced, we

evaluated their quality, using the method of Cropley

and Cropley (2008). We observed that a pen & pa-

per allowed the participants to create more qualitative

ideas, contrary to the CAD software, which obtained

only low scores.

The correlation between the overall creativity

score and the UEQ perspicacity suggests that an easy-

to-use tool is conducive to the generation of uncom-

mon and divergent ideas. The interactions provided

by the VR tools remain simple and favoured and high-

quality ideas. We noted that the most creative ideas

were usually set in a context or a more detailed en-

vironment. This observation was linked to a corre-

lation between UEQ perspicuity and the different di-

mensions of the Cropley & Cropley rating method.

Indeed, ease of use encouraged users to detail their

ideas by providing a context of use or an environment

that made them easier to understand. For example,

ﬁgure 8 shows an idea drawn with the VR CAD tool;

it represents an umbrella which can be used to ﬂy.

We also observed that the originality of the tool

favoured the elaboration and transposition of ideas to

other issues. The avant-garde and unexpected aspect

stimulated the users’ creativity and immersed them in

their task. Finally, it is interesting to note that a pen

& paper, by its simplicity, allowed users to be more

creative.

4.2 Idea’s Communicability

Beyond the quantity and quality of the ideas pro-

duced, we were interested in their communicability.

Through a brief description by another participant and

a rating of the ﬁdelity of this description by the author

of the idea, we measured the communicability of each

Figure 8: Immersive CAD idea judged with a high creativity

score. It represents an umbrella with a jet engine attached

on it to allow it to ﬂy.

idea in relation to the tool used. The results revealed

that a pen & paper allowed better communicability of

ideas. Also, VR tools had a higher level of commu-

nicability than the CAD tool. No link was found be-

tween UEQ dimensions and communicability. How-

ever, we believe that the context and details added to

the ideas promoted communicability. Further studies

would be required to investigate this hypothesis.

The superiority of a pen & paper can also be ex-

plained by the fact that the participants were working

on an A4 sheet whereas the VR software presented a

real-size model that required larger gestures and more

energy to draw an idea. To favour idea communica-

bility, tools must support users to design surroundings

and to design details. For VR tools, a simple interac-

tion to resize the object can help to minimise the effort

to contextualise the idea drawn.

5 CONCLUSION

This study revealed the existing links between user-

experience, creativity and communicability thanks to

four tools. It revealed that the number of ideas was

linked to perspicuity, novelty and stimulation driven

by the different tools. On the other hand, communi-

cability of an idea is determined by the ability of a

tool to give some background. In view of the results,

we can consider new ﬁelds of investigation for further

studies.

We demonstrated, in the context of a drawing task,

that the ease of use and the stimulating nature of a tool

had a positive effect on the user’s creativity. The ease

of use allows more time for thinking, allowing users

to propose more divergent ideas. In this respect, a link

Comparing Creativity, User-experience and Communicability Linked to Digital Tools during the Fuzzy Phases of Innovation

can be observed with the cognitive load described by

Sweller (1988) as we assume that tools with a com-

plex interface and interactions will increase the cog-

nitive load required to establish mental patterns for

translating the idea from a thought to a concept. It

seems important to reduce the cognitive load of users

to enable them to generate more ideas or to be able

to inhibit environmental stimuli that can interrupt the

ﬂow of thinking. If the tools we proposed were devoid

of environment or run in a minimalist environment, it

would not be the same as in a work context where

there are elements which are more or less relevant.

One perspective of this work would be to measure the

impact of the environmental stimuli on cognitive load

in relation to the work of Amabile and Pratt (2016).

The second perspective of our work concerns the

communicability of ideas. We relied only on repre-

sentations to measure communicability. In a profes-

sional context, ideas can be communicated by view-

ing, reading, explaining, etc. In order to offer an inter-

face model dedicated to the communication of ideas,

it seems essential to conduct a study on the different

visualisations paradigms of 3D concepts generated in

an immersive environment.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank our lab, its teams, and its aca-

demic research chair for allowing us the opportunity

to achieve this work. We also thank the participants

mobilised during this long experiment for their in-

vestment and availability. We also thank the Arts &

etiers engineering graduate school and the R

eaumur

College for giving us the opportunity to achieve this

experiment with the participation of their students.

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Comparing Creativity, User-experience and Communicability Linked to Digital Tools during the Fuzzy Phases of Innovation