Humor and Design

In addition to playing an important role in social bonds and group dynamics, humor has a long association with creativity and creative thinking. This study attempts to utilize this relationship in the context of design by enhancing brainstorming with the use of humor. The theories of Incongruity, Superiority, and Relief are central in the creation of humor. This research hypothesizes that these can be applied to enhance creative performance in brainstorming by (1) inducing a humorous atmosphere through stimuli and (2) applying jocular structure to the brainstorming process itself. A study of three brainstorming methods (classical, silent structured, and video-enhanced) was undertaken, the results analyzed using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, and possible influences of humor on levels of creativity evaluated. The results in this indicated that using a humorous stimulus did not have a positive effect, although there remains a strong case in the literature for further investig...

2014

As well as playing an important role in social bonds and group dynamics, humour has a long association with creativity and creative thinking. This study attempts to utilise this relationship in the context of design by enhancing brainstorming with the use of humour. The theories of Incongruity, Superiority and Relief are central in the creation of humour. This research hypothesises that these can be applied to enhance creative performance in brainstorming by inducing a humorous atmosphere through stimuli, and (2) applying jocular structure to the brainstorming process itself. A study of three brainstorming methods (classical, silent structured and video-enhanced) was undertaken, the results analysed using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, and possible influences of humour on levels of creativity evaluated. The results in this indicated that using a humorous stimulus did not have a positive effect, although there remains a strong case in the literature for further investigation. Structuring the brainstorming session did increase fluency and originality, and a number of insights for creative team formation and working are outlined.

Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2020

Humor is an inevitable part of human life. Most of us are capable of experiencing and appreciating humor. From this perspective, surprisingly little HCI research can be found scrutinizing the existence, role, and potential of humor in our design practice. The gap remains also related to children and teenagers; there is a lack of studies appreciating the emergence and existence of humor in the design process without intentionally evoking it. Thus, this study examines humor as a naturally occurring phenomenon in the design process. The study was conducted in collaboration with a class of teenagers and their teachers. The study identifies various forms and functions of humor in the design process and reveals its situated, emergent nature as a resource in interaction within design. The study proposes a practical tool for designers for anticipating and potentially facilitating the emergence, forms and usages of humor as an interactional resource in design.

2016

Humour has long been associated with creativity, however the link has rarely been applied to engineering design. This paper highlights analogies between humour creation and engineering design, and discusses opportunities to develop new processes and methods that could reinvigorate engineering concept design. Idea generation methods have been explored within the realms of improvised comedy and the visual medium of comic strips. The structures and principles of these creative humour processes present opportunities to view complex engineering problems from new and surprising perspectives.

2018

Humour may improve performance in creative problem solving as demonstrated in various studies, although the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are still unclear. In this work the mechanisms of how humour facilitates creative problem solving during the conceptual phase of product design will be investigated. From the educational point of view all the activities that tend to reduce fixation during conceptual design are welcome, because students without specific experiences in work group and in generating original ideas reproduce always what is already known. In order to study the impact of humorous visual stimuli on creativity an experiment was performed. A sample of students of a MSc class in Management Engineering was divided into two sets and engaged to generate ideas concerning benches and shoe racks by Brainwriting (635 method) in two different ways: without stimulus and with stimulus. Three experts evaluated the concepts proposed in the generation phase and the Torrance Test ...

Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2018

This paper investigates humor as a resource and strategy for design with discourse as an intended outcome. While humor can incite empathy and understanding, it can also lead to alienation and disengagement. Through the detailing of the pre-narrative and narrative processes of a design fiction, we describe why and how elements of humor, in particular puns, parody, and pastiche, were employed. Following the presentation of the fiction and its use in the design of an exhibition of diegetic prototypes, the paper presents responses from participants and audience members to reflect upon how the humor was received. Following a discussion on these reflections, as the near-future scenario was written four years prior and is now situated within the present-day, it then concludes with a post-mortem reflection on the floating nature of humor.

2016

We argue that the processes of creating successful comedy are comparable to the processes of designing an innovative product. Our research explores how constructs of humour may be applied to the early phase of engineering design, when divergent thinking is assumed to be most valuable. During a series of exploratory workshops, the principles and processes of creating improvised comedy presented an opportunity to reinvigorate the design process, and overcome some of the common barriers to effective group brainstorming. This paper discusses the link between improvised comedy and design creativity, and the early development of a new improvisation-based approach to design ideation.

International Journal of Indian Psychology

Although the literature mentions the indirect relationship between humor and creativity, there is limited evidence that exposure to humorous objects improves directly creative performance. Moreover, the role of humor in the relationship between creativity and various personality traits is also unclear. For addressing this issue, a total of 53 subjects participated in this study. Humorous images (cartoons) were shown to the participants prior to the creativity task. There were no images in the control group. Findings revealed that the participants receiving humorous images were more creative. Furthermore, while the extraversion enhanced creativity in the control group, there was no effect in the humor group. In other words, the humor overshadowed the effect of extraversion. One of the contributions of the current study to the literature is that it is one of few studies that examine the effect of humor on creativity. In addition, the effect of humor on the relationship between extrave...

The Journal of Aesthetic Education