Creativity refers to human processes that underpin sublime forms of expression and fuel innovation. While a 2005 NSF workshop saw development and evaluation of creativity support tools as a new field, we take the position that researchers are developing sophisticated methods, which have progressed well beyond infancy. We expand the scope with 'environments', a superset of 'tools'.

Creativity support environments (CSEs) span and integrate diverse domains and types of systems, including software, hardware, instrumented spaces, networked topologies, and mobile devices. CSEs may involve temporal-spatial dimensions of collaborative work, requiring evaluation methods that address synchronous, asynchronous, co-located, and distributed interaction.

We seek to gather the community of researchers developing and evaluating CSEs, to share approaches, engage in dialogue, and develop best practices. We seek papers and presentations that develop in-depth methods for CSE evaluation. Methods must be explained with sufficient clarity and detail that others can apply them. They should be grounded by showing how they have been applied in the study of particular CSEs. Authors should motivate the types of CSEs for which a particular evaluation method is well-suited.

The workshop will coalesce the community involved in developing these methods, and set the table, inspiring discussion and debate about the value of particular methods in types of situated contexts. The expected outcome is not a single prescription, but a landscape of routes, an ontology of methodologies with consideration to how they map to creative activities, and an emerging consensus on the range of expectations for rigorous evaluation of CSE research.

We envision a lasting impact from this workshop, addressing shortcomings derived from lack of reuse of CSE evaluation methods in different contexts beyond the initial use. The workshop will create a plan for building an open repository of CSE evaluation methodologies, testing data, and descriptions of situated contexts where methods were applied. The discussed methodologies will form a basis for the repository.

Here is the workshop organizers' statement on Evaluation Methods for Creativity Support Environments.

Papers should be 2-4 pages long, formatted in CHI Archive Format. The best papers will be invited for presentation in 10 minute slots, with 5 minutes discussion for each. Other papers may be invited for presentation as posters.

Important Dates