Brainsketching and How it Differs from Brainstorming Remko van der Lugt Brainsketching is an idea generation technique, based on brainwriting, that uses sketching as the primary means of recording ideas. During brainsketching, participants sketch their ideas individually on large sheets of paper pasted on the wall. After a few minutes, the participants explain their idea sketches, switch places and continue sketching. Usually, about five such rounds of idea sketching take place. In an experimental set-up brainsketching was compared to brainstorming. Linkography was used as a method for analyzing the process characteristics of both techniques. Results show that during brainstorming, participants generated significantly more ideas, and that during brainsketching participants generated significantly more connections with earlier ideas. Also, during brainsketching participants made more incremental connections while maintaining a similar level of ‘wild leap’ connections. Conclusion of this study was that brainsketching does not necessarily provide a better idea generation process; rather, it provides a different process, which may serve different purposes. Some steps towards further development of the brainsketching technique are indicated. Suggestions are provided for stimulating the group to reflect on their ideas. Finally, some suggestions are made for applying the brainsketching technique with groups of non- designers, mainly directed at removing the participants’ hesitation to draw in public. Introduction W hen designers need to generate ideas, they take paper and pencil, and start to produce idea sketches. Or, they may call an idea generation meeting. The available body of idea generation techniques is heavily based on writing as a working medium. Customarily the facilitator of the meeting writes down brief descriptions of ideas on a flipchart. However, many design researchers regard sketching to be instrumental to the creative process of designers. The research project reported here started with the notion that idea generation techniques for design could be enhanced if sketching could be included in such idea generation meetings. Sketching consists of the production of quick and messy drawings of ideas. In design, the activity of sketching is regarded to not only provide a means for representing mental images of ideas. Instead, sketching is re- garded to facilitate the actual generation of such mental images. In a review of the research on drawing and design, Purcell & Gero (1998) focus on research concerned with investigating the ways in which the activity of sketching stimulates creativity in design thinking. They point out underlying themes regarding the role of sketching in design. The principal theme deals with the positive role that sketching plays in re-interpretation. A second theme is that re-interpretation provides new knowledge and that this new knowledge leads towards further re-interpretation. Vari- ous researchers propose such cyclical models of re-interpretation, each with a slightly dif- ferent connotation, ranging from a dialectic type of argumentation between seeing-as and seeing-that (Goldschmidt, 1991), interactive ‘conversations’ with the paper on which the designer draws (Scho ¨n & Wiggins, 1992), and movement from description to depiction (Fish & Scrivener, 1990). In addition to the individual, cognitive functions of sketching, typical group func- tions can be identified. According to Scrivener & Clark (1994), sketching provides represen- tations of design solutions that allow for a range of interpretations of elements. By sketching, temporal decisions are made which allow for evaluation and interpretation Volume 11 Number 1 March 2002 # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA. BRAINSKETCHING 43