Designing Rewards for Rewarding Designs: Demonstrating the Impact of Rewards on the Creative Design Process

2026-04-28

AI Summary

This study investigates how goal-aligned and goal-agnostic reward mechanisms influence decision-making behavior and design diversity in creative tasks. Using a 3D parametric chair design task as the experimental setting, the design process is formalized as a Markov decision process, and a mixed-methods approach—integrating user behavior tracking, experimental psychology paradigms, and hybrid analytical techniques—is employed to systematically examine participants’ exploration strategies and subjective experiences under different reward conditions. The findings reveal that goal-aligned rewards not only enhance goal attainment but also foster more thorough exploration of the design space while preserving diversity. Moreover, the nature of the design goal significantly moderates users’ perceived usefulness of the rewards. These results elucidate the synergistic mechanism between rewards and goals and offer actionable guidelines for designing effective feedback systems in creative design contexts.

Abstract

The creative design process involves transforming abstract goals into concrete outcomes through a series of decisions made under constraints. While such processes are commonly shaped by feedback like rewards, their impact on design decision making remains unclear. To better understand the role of rewards in the design process, we modeled a 3D parametric, goal-based chair design task as a Markov Decision Process. We tracked participants' decisions as they iteratively developed designs for an abstract design goal, and presented either a goal-aligned or goal-agnostic reward at every step. We tested the effect of these rewards on task behaviour and self-reported experience. With rewards, participants more thoroughly explored the design space, and maximised goal-aligned over goal-agnostic rewards while preserving diversity across designs. The nature of the goal also mattered, influencing participants' perception of the reward's usefulness. Building on these insights, we propose guidelines for designing effective feedback for design decision making.

Problem

• reward
• creative design process
• design decision making
• goal alignment
• feedback

Innovation

• reward design
• creative design process
• Markov Decision Process
• design space exploration
• goal-aligned feedback