Design Creativity 2010 part 31. What is ‘design creativity’? It is impossible to answer this question without considering why human beings can – and do – ‘design’. Design creativity is instrumental in not only addressing social problems faced across the world, but also evoking an innate appreciation for beauty and a sense of personal contentment. | Coaching the Cognitive Processes of Inventive Problem Solving with a Computer Niccolo Becattini1 Yuri Borgianni2 Gaetano Cascini1 and Federico Rotini2 1 Politecnico di Milano Italy 2 University of Florence Italy Abstract. The paper presents a research aimed at developing a computer framework to support the analysis of inventive problems according to the logic of TRIZ Theory of Inventive Problem Solving . The output of the dialoguebased procedure consists in a set of terms viable to speed up a proper knowledge search within technical and scientific information sources. A dialogue-based architecture allows to support also users without any TRIZ background. The proposed system although still at a prototype stage has been tested with students at Politecnico di Milano and at the University of Florence. The paper outlines the structure of the algorithm and the results of the first validation activity. Keywords Problem Solving Conceptual Design OTSM-TRIZ Computer-Aided Innovation Dialogue-Based System 1 Introduction It is necessary to innovate to be competitive it is necessary to enhance problem solving skills to develop valuable innovations is the common mantra both in the industrial world and in the product development research domain. According to the authors experience among the methodologies supporting the solution of inventive problems TRIZ Theory of Inventive Problem Solving has unique and precious characteristics to address these issues despite its dissemination and development are too often based on practitioners initiatives rather than collective and scientific discussions. Several organizational and educational models have been proposed so far as in Cascini et al. 2008 but several critical open issues still remain. Simplified TRIZ too often intended as a fuzzy application of the contradiction matrix and the inventive principles is closer to a brainstorming session with guided stimuli than to TRIZ problem solving process and indeed its potential is limited. Thus
