Uses of the novelty metrics proposed by Shah et al.: what emerges from the literature?

Abstract

Several concepts and types of procedures for assessing novelty and related concepts exist in the literature. Among them, the two approaches originally proposed by Shah and colleagues are often considered by scholars. These metrics rely on well-defined novelty types and a specific concept of novelty; however, more than 20 years after the first publication, it is still not clear whether and to what extent these metrics are actually used, why they are used and how. Through a comprehensive review of the papers citing the main work of Shah, Vargas-Hernandez & Smith (2003a, 2003b) (the main study where the metrics are comprehensively described and applied), the present work aims to bridge this gap. The results highlight that only a few of the citing papers actually use the assessment approach proposed by Shah et al. and that a nonnegligible number uses a modified or adapted version of the original metrics. Furthermore, several criticalities in the application of the metrics have been uncovered, which are expected to provide relevant information for scholars involved in reliable and repeatable novelty assessments.

Implementing Horizon Scanning as a tool for the strategic development of regulatory guidelines for nanotechnology-enabled health products

“…Originally developed for design creativity research, this methodology provides a holistic approach to assess the creativity of various ideas or “design solutions” by contrasting each idea with the entire set of design solutions ( 20 ). This structured approach aids objective research in design creativity ( 21 , 26 ).…”

“…Besides, the methodology for novelty quantification was adapted based on the novelty metrics proposed by Shah et al ( 20 ). This widely recognised approach, originating from the field of design creativity research, characterises novelty as a measure of how unusual or unexpected an idea is compared to other ideas ( 20 , 21 ).…”

The Effects of Generative AI on Design Fixation and Divergent Thinking

“…Originality (also called Novelty [23,53]) refers to the uniqueness of a particular sketch within the total pool of sketches made by participants [25,30]. It measures how unusual and unexpected a given idea is.…”

Creativity of products as meant by ordinary people: to what extent do novelty and usefulness matter?

“…On the one hand, the metrics to be used to assess design creativity are not completely agreed upon, despite the fact that most scholars consider at least novelty and usefulness as fundamental requirements for a product to be judged creative (Ou et al, 2023). On the other hand, the standardization process has not allowed a fully repeatable measurement of design and product creativity, see e.g., (Fiorineschi and Rotini, 2023). It is evident that most contributions resort to the Consensual Assessment Technique, whose reliability is challenged (Jeffries, 2017), and the involvement of experts because of the lack of objectivity inherent to criteria to judge creativity.…”