How professional designers use magic-based inspirations: development of a usage guideline and analysis of impact on design process

To support the introduction of magic in product interaction design, magic effects together with technical clues is shown to be effective inspirations for ‘creative and practical’ products in novice designers. In this paper, we aim to develop a guideline to use the magic-based inspiration cards effectively for novice designers. To do this, six professional designers with three levels of design experiences were invited: junior (2 years), intermediate (7 years), and senior (more than 12 years). The verbal protocol analysis revealed that when providfed with the cards, the designers produced more ideas and concerned more about expected behavior of products. On the other hand, design experience negatively impact fluidity of ideas. Our findings suggested that design process is correlated with fluidity and elaboration, but not originality and feasibility. Finally, a guideline on how to use the magic-based tool effectively is developed based on the approaches carried by professional designers.