The effect of information and communication technologies on creativity in collaborative design

Abstract

This study compares the degree of creativity of forty-two conceptual designs proposed as solutions to two innovative design problems developed in face-to-face and virtual collaborative environments. The solutions obtained were evaluated by three experts applying the Moss metric, which considers the level of usefulness and the level of unusualness. The average values and the trends of the data were obtained and an analysis of the variance was also performed to determine whether the environment influences the degree of creativity. The results show that it cannot be proved that the level of creativity is influenced by working face-to-face or virtually, that is, whether Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are used or not has no effect on the final result.