Creative Tension and Design Fixation

This web page addresses the role of creative tension in the design process. The primary focus is on design fixation – the tendency to prematurely adopt suboptimal solutions. We start with a discussion of creative tension, which can be a source of creativity, or a subconscious motivation for limiting the search for creative solutions.

What is creative tension?

The term Creative Tension is attributed to Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of a learning organization.

… personal vision, by itself, is not the key to releasing the energy of the creative process. The key is “creative tension,” the tension between vision and reality. The most effective people are those who can “hold” their vision while remaining committed to seeing current reality clearly.

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, as cited on goodreads.com

This gap between our "vision and reality" is the source of discomfort, creativity and a desire to seek ways of achieving the vision.

You may be interested to know that according to his Wikipedia page, Senge has a BS in aerospace engineering, an MS in social systems modeling, and a PhD in Management.

Design processes usually involve creative tension.

We are given an ill-defined problem – our current reality – and asked to create a solution – a vision for resolving the problem. At an abstract level, solving design problems involves imagining possible solutions and then evaluating those solutions according to some criteria. Though we may be reluctant to admit it, the choice of which criteria to use in evaluating a solution is often subjective.

To be concrete, consider the "problem" of buying a new pair of shoes. The criteria could be how well the shoes fit (how comfortable), how well they look, whether they keep your feet dry in Portland winter, how much they cost, how durable they are (how long they will last), whether they are suitable for wearing in many settings (work, casual, hiking), whether the shoes are available immediately or while require a special order, how easy it is to put them on and take them off, etc. Including all of these criteria will likely make the choice very difficult. Once the criteria are set, we will still have to use judgement in assigning value to each criterion.

Now, consider how creative tension might work in selecting the criteria. If we are averse to creative tension, we could simply eliminate many of the criteria. For example, we could pick the first pair of shoes that fit, that are available now, and that are the cheapest. By selecting those criteria we simplify the choice and thereby eliminate creative tension in the selection process. Note that it may be perfectly reasonable to limit the criteria in order to expedite the purchase of a pair of shoes.

The point is not whether simplifying the criteria is a good or bad idea. Many external factors and subjective values are present in any decision. The point is, if we are averse to creative tension, we will tend to reduce the number of evaluation criteria in order to simplify the selection process. In doing so, our goal becomes expediting the decision not necessarily seeking to increase the quality of the choice.

As schedules allow, we should not rush the early stages of the design process. Obviously, there are time constraints, so we cannot wait indefinitely for clarity and inspiration to resolve the ill-defined or poorly understood aspects of a design problem. What is not so obvious, especially to those inexperienced in design, is that we should try to stay in the ill-defined space as long as practically possible. In other words, our primary goal should not always be to resolve the ill-defined aspects of a problem as quickly as possible because doing so will reduce the chances of finding a better solution.

Creative and serendipitous solutions can emerge from holding the tension between seeking a solution and staying confused. Experienced designers are comfortable with this tension, or at least they accept that this tension is a potential source of good ideas. Most importantly, experienced designers to do not cling to the first idea that seems to solve the problem. In contrast, inexperienced designers often rush to escape the fluid, confusing, contradictory, unclear and loose state of knowledge that characterizes the opportunity development and conceptual development phases.

Design Fixation

Design fixation refers to a premature narrowing of choices in the design process. Sticking with an early, suboptimal idea is an example of design fixation.

Either from habit, lack of experience, lack of curiosity, or other reasons, a designer will latch onto an idea in a way that discounts consideration of less familiar and potentially innovative ideas. In other words, design fixation is a way of eliminating creative tension, and a natural consequence of doing so. Design fixation often happens subconsciously, in part because we tell ourselves that our current idea is the best idea that we are likely to find for solving the problem in front of us.

Here are quotes from three articles that discuss design fixation.

Ferro 2015:

Sometimes, your first idea is not your best one. But you might fixate on it, especially if the idea has worked for you before. In academic terms, this phenomenon is called design fixation. In layman’s terms, we might call it getting set in your ways, experiencing tunnel vision, regurgitating old ideas, or being blinded to alternatives.

Crilly 2015:

"The term 'design fixation' … refer[s] to the way in which designers inadvertently carry over specific and unhelpful features from a previous example when they are designing something new"

Moreno Et al, 2014:

"Design fixation is described as the inability to solve design problems by: employing a familiar method ignoring better ones, self-imposing constraints [6], or limiting the space of solutions by means of developing variants [5], [1], and [7]." (Numbers refer to references in the original article.)

When we fixate on a particular solution to the expense of new ideas, we resolve the creative tension by abandoning the potential in our vision. We declare – consciously or not – that our current reality (our current idea for solving the problem) satisfies our vision, and thereby eliminate the creative tension.

Design Tools and Processes

In order to create a practical solution, we need to understand the desirable outcomes that resolve the problem. Once we have a clear idea of those outcomes, we need to explore and ultimately find practical ways to achieve those outcomes. That makes sense and seems so obvious. However, in practice it can be quite difficult to understand what outcomes truly solve the problem.

Here are some suggestions.

  1. Acknowledge the existence of the creative tension
    • Acknowledge the feeling of discomfort caused by creative tension.
    • Accept that the creative tension is normal.
    • Recognize that creative tension can be a used to motivate creative ideation.
  2. Schedule time for creative and conceptual work
    • Put time in the schedule for conceptual design work: You can't avoid the ideation process even if you willfully do a crappy job at it
    • Delineate the idea generation and concept evaluation stages: Don't corrupt (and thereby foreshorten) ideation by mixing it with concept evaluation
    • Follow your schedule:
      • If you enjoy ideation and creativity, acknowledge that the time for ideation is limited and you will need to move on. In other words, set a limit on the time available for ideation, while also being open to new ideas throughout the project.
      • If you don't like ideation, give it your best shot anyway, and know that there will be time to do the reductive work of concept evaluation
  3. Use design tools and techniques
    • In the idea domain
    • In physical domain: Rapid iteration with prototypes
      • Use internally by the team to generate ideas
      • Show client to elicit feedback before the team settles on concepts

Use of Prototypes

Usually we don’t know whether ideas work until and unless we try them out. Hence, designers can learn a lot about the problem they are trying to solve by constructing imperfect models – prototypes – that explore the range and type of outcomes.

Experimenting with prototypes and developing alternative conceptual designs are tools that help us to transform an ill-defined, non-concrete, problem into a concrete problem. These experiments allow us to try out ideas, to sit with them. Prototypes and design concepts do not need to solve the problem to be useful. A prototype or an incomplete design concept can be one step in the design process.

Creative Tension exists throughout the design process

We've described creative tension in the context of conceptual design. However, it exists wherever there is a gap between our vision and our current reality. (That applies to life, as well as design!)

Recognizing the role of creative tension will help you cultivate and manage your creativity skills.

References

  1. Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization, 2006 Revised & Updated edition, Doubleday, New York, ISBN 978-0385517256.

  2. Shaunacy Ferro, What is "design fixation," and how can you stop it? Fast Company, 1 April 2015, https://www.fastcodesign.com/3044535/what-is-design-fixation-and-how-can-you-stop-it

  3. Nathan Crilly, Fixation and creativity in concept development: The attitudes and practices of expert designers, Design Studies, 38 (2015), pp. 54–91. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2015.01.002

  4. Diana P. Moreno, Maria C. Yang, Alberto A. Hernández, Julie S. Linsey, and Kristin L. Wood, A Step Beyond to Overcome Design Fixation: A Design-by-Analogy Approach, Design Computing and Cognition DCC’14. J.S. Gero (ed), Springer 2014


Document updated 2018-02-04.