Generative techniques

Generative techniques are used in people-centred design “to allow participants to externalize emotions and thoughts by creating objects that express them” . Researchers discuss objects with participants while the participants are making them and then analyse them later on their own in order to “learn more about desires, sensations, and aspirations that are often hard to explain” (ibid.). Goodman et al. describe two often-used generative techniques and how to use them in design research: collage (where individuals or groups of people make a new composition out of a pre-existing set of elements) and mapping (visual representations of relationships between people, objects, and spaces).