The Relation between Design Expertise and the Quality of Design Idea

Designers rely much heavily on experience. Previously, it was assumed that particular developmental experiences are correlated with creativity which develops over time and with experience. The aim of this study is to explore whether design expertise definitely improves the creativity of design idea in architectural design. To test the hypothesis, some architectural designers at different levels of expertise, from novice students to expert architects, participated in a design task. The novelty and quality of design ideas were evaluated as the signs of creativity. The results indicated that there are significant relations between design expertise with the quality, but not with the novelty of design ideas. The expert designers preferred to find ideas that have practical solutions to the design problem, but novices looked for original ideas. We concluded that design experience influences the creative ideation, but have different effects on various aspects of design creativity.