Rolling with the Punches: Designing for an Inherently Chaotic Creative Process

Abstract. How do students and young professionals in different domains currently engage in the creative process? What are some common frustrations people have with their tools and processes, and how are they coping? Combining data from user research, self-reflections, observations from teaching, and drawing on the current literature on creative cognition, this thesis aims to bridge the theoretical findings on creativity with real-world applications, by designing artifacts that will make the creative process useful and accessible to individuals on a day-to-day basis.