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Creating truly original ideas requires extensive knowledge of existing ideas. Navigating prior examples can help people to understand what has already been done and to assess the quality of their own ideas through comparison. The creativity literature has suggested that the conceptual distance between a proposed solution and a potential inspiration can influence one's thinking. However, less is known about how creators might use data about conceptual distance when exploring a large repository of ideas. To investigate this, we created a novel tool for exploring examples called IdeateRelate that visualizes 600+ COVID-related ideas, organized by their similarity to a new idea. In an experiment that compared the IdeateRelate visualization to a simple list of examples, we found that users in the Viz condition leveraged both semantic and categorical similarity, curated a more similar set of examples, and adopted more language from examples into their iterated ideas (without negatively affecting the overall novelty). We discuss implications for creating adaptive interfaces that provide creative inspiration in response to designers' ideas throughout an iterative design process. 

Problem framing—the process of defining a problem—has been described by many researchers and designers as the crux of the design process. However, novice designers struggle with problem framing. To better understand this process and the potential for scaffolding, we conducted two studies. In the first study, we analyzed 41 problem statements from an introductory design course and found that novices often omit key information, like the primary stakeholder or the obstacles they face. To get novices to reflect on and include necessary design information, we created a tool called ProbLib that cues novices to explicitly reflect on aspects of the problem such as the stakeholders. To evaluate this approach, we conducted a between-subjects study (N=73) to compare ProbLib with an unstructured open text form. We found that participants using ProbLib wrote higher quality statements, included more information, and were more confident about specifying design needs. We observed creative behaviors such as brainstorming and analogical reasoning. 

Team dating, or small-group interactions, can expose people to diverse perspectives and inform the potential for longer-term collaboration. However, rapidly configuring groups and facilitating interactions among strangers can be difficult, especially in co-located settings. We present ProtoTeams, a system that leverages personal mobile devices to support rapid group formation, to facilitate group activities, and to collect data about the potential for future collaboration. We report on a field study where 406 students in eight different project-based classes used ProtoTeams to interact with classmates through multiple rounds of brief discussion activities before selecting teammates for a term project. We found that the system enables groups to form in about one minute, allows for meaningful interactions with a diverse range of peers, and can significantly influence subsequent teammate selection. We discuss design implications and challenges for in-person team dating in classrooms and other contexts. 

Feedback is a key element of project-based learning, but only if students reflect on and learn from the feedback they receive. Students often struggle to deeply engage with feedback, whether due to lack of confidence, time, or skill. This work seeks to identify challenges that make reflecting on feedback difficult for students, and to design possible solutions for supporting reflection. Through observing two university game design courses, our research found that without concrete reflection strategies, students tended to be attracted to feedback that looks useful, but does not necessarily them move forward. When we introduced three different reflection scaffolds to support students, we found that the most effective approach promoted interactive learning by allowing time for self-reflection before team reflection, offering time limits, providing activities for feedback prioritization, helping teams align their goals, and equalizing team member participation. We present design guidelines for future systems to support reflection on feedback.