The effect of constraints in creativity : From the perspective of web designers

Abstract: Purpose – Web is no longer solely about functionality and information as it used to be. Nowadays the aesthetic aspects, including creativity, could be considered just as important. However, web designers still need to fulfil the needs of clients and users in the design process which causes various design constraints. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how web designers’ creativity is affected by various design constraints. This is explored by one main research question and a sub-question: 1.) How is web designers’ creativity affected by design constraints?; 1.1) What could cause web designers to break web design guidelines? Method – This research applied an inductive, qualitative approach with an exploratory view. In order to find answers for the research questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 participants from the field of web design. The data gathered was later analysed and evaluated through thematic analysis Conclusions – The findings of this study suggest that while there are some positive effects, web designers’ creativity is mostly negatively affected by design constraints. Furthermore, it seems web designers break web design guidelines due to finding them irrelevant and/or to get a more creative outcome as well as breaking them unintentionally. Delimitations – This study only covers how web designers reason regards the research questions and does not include the perspective of web developers. Moreover, this thesis focuses solely on website design and does not involve design for mobile applications.