Interestingly, Lewin himself is a conceptualist and in his field theory he stated:

“Without theory, it is impossible for any science to progress. The fruitfulness of theory lies in the unknown facts and relations it envisions, which can then be studied or observed under experimental conditions. Theory should fulfill two main functions: first, it should account for what is known; second, it should point the way to new knowledge. Experiments should, therefore, be undertaken with the purpose of testing theoretical concepts, instead of merely collecting and analyzing elemental facts or classifying behavior statistically.”

The conceptual and experimental approaches to innovation have a direct impact on the speed of the design process. But what about ideas? Is there a faster or easier way to come up with ideas?

The Search For Ideas: Active or Passive

“Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas.” — José Martí

Inspiration is the starting point of the design process for most designers. Sometimes we search for the idea itself, and sometimes we search for ways to execute it.

This is known as “information-seeking behavior”, a term coined by Dr. Thomas D. Wilson, an English librarian turned academic. Wilson defines information-seeking behavior as:

“…the purposive seeking for information as a consequence of a need to satisfy some goal. In the course of seeking, the individual may interact with manual information systems (such as a newspaper or a library), or with computer-based systems (such as the World Wide Web).”

Similarly to the innovation models, there are also two main models of information seeking behavior identified by Wilson: Active and passive.

Active search is when an individual actively seeks information: the individual intentionally seeks for information through different means. On the contrary, passive search is when an individual gains information in an unintended way, like for example, while watching TV or reading a book.

Every designer uses both models in their professional life, and most of the times in the same project. Sometimes we will have a client with a particular need and we will have to actively seek for ideas and solutions. Other times we’ll be in the middle of watching a movie or reading a book, or even engaging in the most mundane things like walking our dog, and out of nowhere, an idea — maybe a solution to something we had in the back of our mind — comes to us.

But what about the times when we know we have to actively seek for an idea, and instead we choose to do something else?Something maybe entirely unrelated to our original task. This is called procrastination and it’s normally seen as a bad habit. But is it?

Procrastination

“Procrastinator? No, I just wait until the last second to do my work, because I will be older, and therefore wiser.” — Unknown

Creative people tend to use procrastination as a form of incubation to avoid making premature choices, letting them naturally evolve into the right solution to the problem. Procrastination is sometimes seen as a deterrent of progress on a task or project. However, even though procrastination may slow down progress, it has an advantage: It makes us more flexible and receptive to new ideas.

Adam Grant explains in his book “Originals,” when we procrastinate, we are postponing something that needs to be done to do something else instead. That something else is usually something of less importance. For instance, when we are passionate about the project we are working on, or trying to solve a problem, — this is important because we tend to think (consciously or unconsciously) about things we care about — it will naturally remain in the back of our heads. Our subconscious self will actively work on it, coming up with theories, and proving and disproving them internally, while our conscious self does something else.