Kavramsal tasarım sürecinde Pinterest'te görsel veri taramanın yaratıcı düşünceye etkisi: Deneyimli ve deneyimsiz tasarımcılar üzerine bir inceleme
The influence of visual data screening via Pinterest on creative thinking in the conceptual design phase: An examination of expert and novice designers
Yazar: EZGİ TORUN ALACACI
Danışman: DR. ÖĞR. ÜYESİ DENİZ LEBLEBİCİ BAŞAR
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Endüstri Ürünleri Tasarımı Ana Bilim Dalı / Endüstriyel Tasarım Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2019
Konu: Endüstri Ürünleri Tasarımı = Industrial Design

Özet:
Yaratıcı problem çözme eylemi olarak tanımlanan tasarlama eylemi, bilişsel
perspektifte çağrışımsal teori ile ilişkilendirilebilir. Çağrışım teorisine göre yaratıcı
problem çözme kişinin dahili ve harici çağrışımsal belleğindeki bilginin dönüşümü ile
mümkündür. Bu bağlamda, tasarımcılar yeni ve yaratıcı fikirler üretirken,
belleklerindeki mevcut bilgiyi ve araştırma yaparak elde ettikleri dış kaynaklı bilgiyi
kullanarak görsel ve sözel çağrışım havuzları oluştururlar.
Yeni nesil internet teknolojileri sayesinde tasarımcıların araştırma (dış kaynaklı bilgi)
süreçleri önemli ölçüde değişmiştir. Sosyal ağların hayatımıza girmesiyle birlikte
gerçek hayatta gerçekleştirilen birçok etkileşim sanal dünyaya aktarılmıştır. Pinterest
kavramsal tasarım sürecinde görsel veri taramak için gerek deneyimli tasarımcılar,
gerekse tasarım öğrencileri tarafından sıklıkla kullanılan bir sosyal platformdur. Bu
platformun sunduğu birçok görselle bireylerin oluşturduğu çağrışım havuzlarını
genişleterek yaratıcı süreci olumlu mu etkilediği yoksa Pinterest'te bulunan herkesin
erşimine açık görsellerin bireylerde benzer görsel çağrışım havuzları oluşturarak
bilginin temsili ve dönüşümü sürecinde benzer problem çözümlerine ulaşılmasına
sebep olarak yaratıcılığı mı sınırlandırdığını irdelemek bu tezin ana motivasyonunu
oluşturmaktadır. Ayrıca Pinterest'in yaratıcı sürece etkisinin tasarımcıların uzmanlık
düzeyiyle ilişkisini ortaya koymak, bu çalışmanın temel amaçlarındandır.
Bu çalışmada tasarımın bilişsel süreçleri ve bir sosyal ağ uygulaması olan Pinterest
üzerine literatür incelendikten sonra kavramsal tasarım aşamasında Pinterest'ten
görsel taramanın yaratıcı problem çözme sürecine olan etkisi incelenmiştir. Araştırma
yöntemi olarak anket ve deney çalışmasının birlikte kullanıldığı bir karma yöntem
kurgulanmıştır. Böylece öncelikle tasarımcıların Pinterest kullanım karakteristikleri
ile ilgili veri, betimsel bir araştırma ile toplanmış ve ikinci aşamada da Pinterest'in
tasarım sürecindeki kullanımı ve toplanan görsel verinin tasarım çıktılarını ne şekilde
etkilediği irdelenmiştir.
Sonuçlar, deneyimli tasarımcıların, deneyimsizlere göre Pinterest aramaları ve kendi
belleklerini taradıkları aşama olan bilgi arama için daha az vakit harcarken bilginin
temsiline daha çok vakit harcamış ve daha çok eskiz üretmiş olduklarını göstermiştir.
Deney kurgusu içinde, tecrübe arttıkça dışsal uyaranların katkısının azaldığı
görülmüştür. Ancak genel sonuç olarak tecrübeli ya da deneyimsiz olması fark
etmeksizin Pinterest'in yaratıcı problem çözümüne olumlu katkıda bulunduğu
söylenebilir.

Abstract:
Designing defined as creative problem-solving activity can be correlated with associative theory in cognitive perspective. According to the associative theory, creative problem solving is possible with the transformation of the information in the internal and external associative memory of an individual. In this context, while creating new and creative ideas, designers create pools of visual and verbal associations by using the existing information in their memory and the external information obtained through research.
With the introduction of social networks into our lives, many real-life interactions have been transferred to the virtual world. The change in external sources of information from the physical to the digital word, designers' research (external information) processes have changed significantly. Pinterest is a social platform frequently used by experienced designers and design students to scan visual data in the conceptual design process. In line with personal observations and preliminary information obtained as a result of research conducted within the scope of a graduate course at Istanbul Technical University; it is viewed that Pinterest is often preferred by designers for reasons such as seeing different examples, expanding the design repertoire and following design trends. 
This study aims to examine the influence of visual data screening via Pinterest on creative thinking in the conceptual design phase qualitatively and quantitatively in terms of information processing hypothesis. The main motivation of this thesis to examine whether this platform positively affects the creative process by expanding the association pools with the many visuals that it presents, or does visuals that are accessible to everyone on Pinterest limit creativity by creating similar pools of visual associations, leading to similar problem solutions in the process of representation and transformation of knowledge. According to the level of expertise of the designers, there are differences in cognitive data processing. These cognitive differences also lead to differentiation in the way of collecting and representing information. Therefore it is one of the main objectives of the study to reveal the effects of Pinterest on the creative process in terms of the level of expertise of designers.
In this context, a mixed method approach including questionnaire and experimental study is used. First of all, a questionnaire was conducted to determine the motivations of using Pinterest and how the visual data acquisition process in Pinterest took place. In the second stage, how the visual data scanned in Pinterest affects the design process and outputs are examined by designing an experiment.
After the implementation questionnaire, the experimental study was designed in accordance with the information obtained from the literature and the findings of the questionnaire. Alternative Uses Test was applied to the participants before the experiment was conducted and the participants were divided into groups in such a way that the groups with the same average creativity score were obtained. It was applied to 4 different experimental groups consisting of a total of 16 people, 2 of which were experimental (novice and expert experiment groups) and 2 of them were in control group (novice and expert control groups) with an average creativity value and an equal number of participants. 
The analysis of the experiment was carried out in two stages. Firstly, visual and process-based individual and group analyses of experimental groups were performed with the coding scheme and process sheets. Afterward, sketch representations of experimental groups and control groups were evaluated in terms of creativity with Consensus Assessment Technique.
The coding scheme was created by using the Information Processing System Model in Design. This model has examined the design process in three stages: search of information, representation of information and transformation of information. In this experimental study, thinking during the experiment refers to the designer's own inner search. External search mechanisms are processes that involve the designer's activities on Pinterest, such as scanning/pinning/typing a keyword.  After obtaining the desired information by searching, this information is represented as external or internal. In the present experiment, the process involving all kinds of activities performed in the sketch environment is accepted as the representation of the information.
The individual results of the experimental groups showed that expert participants spent less time searching for information, which is the stage in which they searched Pinterest activities and their own mental repositories, while they spent more time representing the information and producing more sketches. According to the literature, having a large case library for expert designers to refer to allows them to produce solutions faster than novices, while novice designers have a few reference points in their memory stores, which makes novices need more time to learn. Although a parallel result was obtained according to the preliminary findings of the study, there was a statistically significant difference between the sketch numbers according to the experience factor, but there was no significant difference between the experimental groups on the basis of time spent searching for information and representation of information due to the small sample size.
In the second stage of the experimental analysis, sketch representations were analyzed in terms of creativity on the basis of experimental groups and control groups. This evaluation includes the evaluation of all sketches produced by the control and experimental groups by two independent experts according to the parameters of functionality and originality which are the two main factors of creativity. The results were analyzed with paired comparisons on the basis of 4 experimental groups and the statistical significance of the paired comparisons was analyzed with Mann Whitney-U Tests.
The Consensus Assesment Technique results showed that Pinterest contributed positively to creative problem solving regardless of whether it is expert or novice for all experimental and control groups.  However, there is a higher difference between expert designers compared to novice groups. In the literature, it is emphasized that novice designers need guiding stimuli more than experts in the conceptual design process. The data obtained support literature. In the present experimental study, novice designers do not recognize the material and are not familiar with detail analysis, and they need resources to verify themselves in producing formal solutions, while expert designers searched Pinterest-visual data to see different examples. In other words, it should be noted that as experience increases, the contribution of Pinterest as an external stimulus decreased.