Conducted an online survey with 175 participants to explore how people use search engines as well as other online resources/tools (e.g., images, videos, and social media) to support their daily creative tasks.

1. Understanding How People use Search to Support their
Everyday Creative Tasks
Yinglong Zhang
@ylzhang03
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Robert Capra
@rcapra3

2. What is studied?
2

3. What is studied?
3

4. Why is this important?
4

5. Why is this important?
5

6. Why is this important?
6
● No clear definitions of
creativity
● Mostly focused on new tools
● Little research on search
engines (e.g., free-form web
curation tool)

7. Why is this important?
7
● No clear definitions of
creativity
● Mostly focused on new tools
● Little research on search
engines (e.g., free-form web
curation tool)

8. Why is this important?
8
● Little research on creativity
(e.g., serendipity in search,
leisure activities and search,
everyday life information
seeking, information seeking
behaviors of artists );
● No clear definitions of
creativity
● Mostly focused on new tools
● Little research on search
engines (e.g., free-form web
curation tool)

9. Do people use search engines to
support their creative endeavors?
How do people use search engines
to support their creativity?
9

10. Why is this important?
10
Design Contribution
● Cross-device searching
● Learning
● Domain- and stage- aware system

11. Why is this important?
11
Design Contribution
● Cross-device searching
● Learning
● Domain- and stage- aware system
Theoretical contribution
● Creativity
● Creative processes
● Creative tasks

12. How is it studied?
Creativity and creative process
Survey Design
Sampling
Bayesian analysis
12

13. Originality
Meaningfulness
13
Everyday creativity (Richard, 2010)

14. Creative Process
14
Find and
format
problem
Acquire
relevant
knowledge
Gather
potentially
related
information
Incubation
Generate
ideas
Combine
ideas
Select
ideas
Execute
Sawyer’s framework (2011)
tomorrow

15. How is it studied?
Creativity, creative task, and creative process
Survey Design
Sampling
Bayesian analysis
15

16. Survey Design
16
Task description
Q1: “... a time recently when you
went online to look for useful
resources or information to help
you create something...”
Q2: “... please tell us about your
creative process in the task...”

17. Survey Design
17
Task description
❑ Desktop (or PC)
❑ Smartphone
❑ Tablet
❑ Smart TV (Apple TV, Roku, Play
TV, etc.)
❑ Google Home or Alexa
❑ Other (please specify)
Devices

18. Survey Design
18
Task description
❑Search engines (Google, Bing,
Yahoo, etc.)
❑Social site (Facebook, Twitter,
Reddit, Google+, etc.)
❑Images (Pinterest, Instagram,
Tumblr, Flickr, etc.)
❑Videos (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
❑Other (please specify)
Devices
Resource/
tools

19. Survey Design
19
Task description
❑Find and format problem
❑Acquire relevant knowledge
❑Gather potentially related
information
❑Generate ideas
❑Combine ideas
❑Select ideas
❑Execute
❑Other (please specify)
Devices
Resource/
tools
Creative
Process
Search Engines:

20. Survey Design
20
Task description
§ How satisfied were you with
using search engines to
generate ideas (seven-point
scale)
§ Helpfulness (two open-ended
questions)
Devices
Resource/
tools
Creative
Process
Search engines + Generate ideas
Creative
Process

21. How is it studied?
Creativity, creative task, and creative process
Survey Design
Sampling
Bayesian Analysis
21

22. Sampling
22
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5
Group 1: crafts, architectural design,
culinary arts
Group 2: humor, theater, film
Group 3: invention, entrepreneurial
ventures, product design
Group 4: visual arts, interaction design,
visual design, graphic design
Group 5: writing, presentation, report
writing, creative writing
Each day: 9*5 = 45 Hits

23. Sampling
23

24. How is it studied?
Creativity, creative task, and creative process
Survey Design
Sampling
Bayesian analysis
24

25. Frequentist vs. Bayesian
25
“Bayesian analysis provides more
precise estimates of previously-studied
conditions in each successive study”
“Bayesian analysis allows more precise
comparison of novel conditions against
known conditions.”
“Bayesian analysis draws more
reasonable conclusions from small-n
studies. ”
--- Matthew Kay (2016)

26. Why Bayesian?
26
“*”
Null Hypothesis Significance
Testing (NHST)

27. Selected Findings
27

28. Selected Findings -
Creative Tasks
“I went online to help making a plan to stop
smoking. I looked for resources on different
methods such as the patch, ideas on how to control
cravings, how to manage weight gain and looked
for a few helpful websites where people could go to
post their thoughts, ask questions and help one
another ...”
28

29. Selected
Findings -
Creative Tasks
“I was trying to figure out how
to use a 3D printer to create a
unique cell phone case for my
Samsung Galaxy S7. I
researched optimal printing
materials, as well as the easiest
design software to make my
design.”
29

30. Selected
Findings -
Creative
Tasks
.... So in my spare time I like to work on a thing
called Raspberry Pi. I do programming. Well
for this I must use the internet a lot. There are
a lot of things I do not know about
programming. I wanted to create a new
program that interacts with current Nest
software within my home. I want my Nest
thermostat to be able to control more than
just the temperature within my home. So I am
working on making the thermostat interact
with my raspberry pi …
30

31. Selected Findings - Creative Tasks
31
# of creative tasks: 175
# of task activities: 26
# of domains: 8
Creativity is not just about art, but also
covers our day-to-day work and life.

32. Selected Findings - Devices/platforms
32
Supporting cross-device search could
be a potential way to support users’
creative tasks.
42.3%

33. Search: Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Videos: Youtube, Vimeo, ect.
Images: Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, etc.
Social sites: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Google+, etc.
33
Resources/tools

34. Selected Findings - Resources/tools
34
Search engines were more likely to use
along with other resources/tools in the
creative tasks.

35. q Find goals: figure out my goal (what I want to create/design or which
problem I want to address/solve).
q Look up: look up information relevant to my goal.
q Explore: explore (gather abroad of range of potentially related information)
about my goal.
q Create ideas: create a large variety of ideas that may achieve my goal.
q Combine ideas: combine some ideas that I have already had.
q Select ideas: select the best ideas from all the new ideas that I have
created.
q Execute: figure out how to put my ideas into practice to achieve my goal. 35
Creative Stages

36. 36
Selected Findings - Creative Processes

37. 37
Selected Findings - Creative Processes
Creative tasks are prone to be multiple-
stage tasks.
72%

38. 38
Selected Findings - Creative Processes
Creative tasks are prone to be multiple-
stage tasks.
“Creating”
“Knowing”
72%

39. There are opportunities for search
engines to facilitate creative processes
by providing domain- aware support.
39
Selected Findings - Creative Processes
*Crafts arts -> look up
*Visual arts -> create ideas
*Craft arts -> create ideas
Note: we developed seven Bayesian logistic regression
models, one for each creative stage.

40. There are opportunities for search
engines to facilitate creative process
by providing stage- aware support.
40
Selected Findings - Creative Processes
*Look up -> Search
*Explore - > Images
*Create ideas -> Images
*Create ideas -> Social sites
*Execute -> Videos
Note: we developed four Bayesian random effects
logistic regression models, one for each resource/tool.

41. UX Experience
41

42. 42
Selected Findings - UX
Find
Goals
Look
Up
Explore Create
Ideas
Combine
Ideas
Select
Ideas
Execute
Search
- - - - - -
Videos
- - - - - -
Images
- - - - - -
Social
Sites - - -
No tool/resource has dominating advantages across all the creative stages.
Note: we developed seven Bayesian random effects ordered porbit regression models, each for one creative stage.

43. Recommendations
43

44. Future Research
What are the creative tasks?
44

45. Future Research
What are the creative tasks?
They are just complex work tasks.
45

46. Future Research
What are the creative tasks?
They are just complex work tasks.
People and their creative processes!
46

47. Future Research
● More longitudinal research
47
Creative
task
Creative
stage
Creative
stage
Creative
stage
...
Searching
tasks
Searching
tasks
Searching
tasks

48. Future Research
● More longitudinal research
● Learning: “Knowing” -> “Creating”
48
Knowing
Creating

49. Descriptive knowledge -> Procedural knowledge
49

50. Future Research
● More longitudinal research
● Learning: “knowing” -> “creating”
● Design resolutions to support
creative stages:
50

51. Future Research
● More longitudinal research
● Learning: “knowing” -> “creating”
● Design resolutions to support
creative stages:
51

52. Future Research
● More longitudinal research
● Learning: “knowing” -> “creating”
● Design resolutions to support
creative stages:
○ History-keeping and re-finding
52

53. Future Research
● More longitudinal research
● Learning: “knowing” -> “creating”
● Design resolutions to support
creative stages:
○ History-keeping and re-finding
○ Domain- and stage- aware support
53

54. References Frich, J., Mose Biskjaer, M., & Dalsgaard, P. (2018).
Twenty Years of Creativity Research in 60
Human-Computer Interaction: Current State and
Future Directions. In Proceedings of the
2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference
(pp. 1235–1257).
Richards, R. (2010). Everyday creativity: Process
and way of life—Four key issues. In J. C. Kaufman &
R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of
creativity (pp. 189-215). New York, NY, US:
Cambridge University Press.
Sawyer, R. K. (2011). Explaining creativity: The
science of human innovation. New York, NY, US:
Oxford University Press.
54

55. Thanks
55
Thanks for the support by SIGIR student travel grants
This work was supported by NSF grants (IIS1552587)
rcapra@unc.edu
@rcapra3
yinglongz.com
@ylzhang03