Analyzing information resources that support the creative process

As an important skill in many domains, creativity is understood to be a process that includes stages like finding goals, looking up information, exploring, creating ideas, combining ideas, selecting ideas, and executing plans [50]. However, little prior information retrieval research has considered how people use search tools and information resources to support their creative stages. To gain a better understanding of how and why users interact with information resources and tools during a creative process, we conducted a two-week diary study with 11 participants. We recorded their information seeking behavior through a combination of diary entries, data logging, and reflective interviews. Our analysis identified five common reasons for how people use existing information resources (e.g., search engines, video sites, image sites, Q&A sites, and other social sites) to support their creative process. We also report on how different information resources were preferred for different purposes at different creative stages. For instance, participants often used images to help support ideation, Q&A sites to learn from other creators and to find tips and recommendations, and social media to select ideas and collect feedback on their creative projects. We also identified challenges participants faced when working on their creative projects. Our findings provide insights for the future design of search engines, improvement of search algorithms, and the development of novel tools to support users during different creative stages.