Design creativity in product innovation

The traditional design methods mainly focus on product or technical system themselves, but seldom recognise and plan design process from creative cognition approach point of views. This paper presents a qualitative model of creativity for product innovation. The factors that affect individual creativity are analyzed. Based on the characteristics of product design, incorporating cognitive psychology, information technology and computer application technology into design technology, a qualitative model of creativity for product innovation is developed. The key attributes of the model, named thinking styles and computer support tool, are analyzed, as well as the approaches of enhancing designer’s creativity for product innovation are presented. Based on the cognising process, the design activities were defined and represented, then, suitable creative strategies were selected. A systematic man-machine interactively creative design approach was established and a preliminary prototype software system of computer-aided design for product innovation was developed.