Validation of A Brainstorming Tool “IDEATOR”

The study carried out the validation on the designers' working efficiency during ideation by using IDEATOR as a support tool, what is an achievement of previous research and project. Observations were applied to investigate the differences on the behavior linkages and the idea sketches between the designers' ideation with IDEATOR and without IDEATOR. The results show that: 1) a coding scheme with 10 design behavior codes is made by reviewing the behaviors of designers' ideation with IDEATOR; 2) the designers with IDEATOR presented gathering information (GA) and generating ideas (GI) behaviors more frequently than the designers without IDEATOR in the ideation; 3) designers with IDEATOR in the ideation can be inspired both by words and images but the designers without IDEATOR in the ideation mostly inspired by images; 4) IDEATOR do support designers' lateral thinking in the early design based on the analysis of designers' idea sketches.