The Effects of GUI on Users’ Creative Performance in Computerized Drawing

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an empirical comparative study investigating how the results of a computerized figural creativity test are affected when the participants use two different versions of the User Interface (UI) on a mouse-operated desktop PC. The results show that participants get slightly higher creativity scores with the interface that has no visual artifacts available and offers more similar user experience to pen and paper, contrary to the more elaborated one. That phenomenon is expected to contribute to the cumulative effect of GUI and input method noticed by previous research. That implies that creative drawing and testing should be carefully introduced into computer-based environments.