Designing Artefacts Based on Triggers to Support Innovation and Creativity

Abstract: This master’s thesis aims to identify triggers for innovation and creativity both from theory and from practise in the context of an automotive manufacturing company. The identified triggers are then re-interpreted and used to design prototypes which aim to visualise, support, and stimulate incremental innovation. Through a design process, the prototypes are co-designed together with a group of participants from the automotive manufacturing company to explore and understand how to create prototypes that are relevant to the context. The result indicates that the prototypes do not only visualise, support, and stimulate incremental innovation but that they can also function as a foundation for radically design and develop new approaches to work; such as incorporating design thinking and a more diverse, inclusive, and creative approach to idea generation. Ultimately, the prototypes can be incentives for changing the organisation in the way the employees work and approach tasks, but the employees must learn how to use the prototypes to utilize them in the most efficient way.