The Unconscious Workspace: How Designers Can Use Shared Virtual Spaces for Creative Problem Solving

Design teams use online digital spaces to communicate when working remotely, varying from email to chat to video collaboration tools. Often, these spaces stifle the team’s creative problem-solving abilities. The opportunity space is explored through two focused explorations: Creativity in 3D virtual spaces, and collaboration and communication in 3D virtual spaces. The first focused exploration between virtual workflows and the creative model described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi revealed a noteworthy difference between the two - the incubation phase. The incubation effect is described as a process of allowing the unconscious mind to process ideas indirectly while an individual participates in an unrelated task. These incubation periods often occur in physical spaces through play and discovery for a creative team before they can achieve a sense of creative flow. However, there is no clear emphasis to include a space in virtual team environments for incubation to occur. 3 Creativity is heavily influenced by our surroundings. Immersive virtual environments create an atmosphere that welcomes play and experimentation, as well as allowing developers to control sensory information given to the user. The flexibility of virtual spaces allows us to create an individual’s ideal creative space. Secondly, complex design problems often require novel ideas generated from the knowledge of more than one area of expertise. George de Mestral, a Swiss electrical engineer, had studied the unique form of cockleburs when he noticed they had gotten stuck in his dog’s fur during a hunting trip. This had led to the invention of the hook and loop fastener. People from different fields tend to interpret information differently due to learned convergent thinking methods, leading to different perspectives. Working in isolation can lead to misinterpretation of information or the problem space, which can misdirect what the team is solving for.