Creativity Support Index

Screenshot of the first 6 rating scale questions on the CSI

The Creativity Support Index (or CSI) is a survey metric designed specifically for evaluating the ability of a creativity support tool (CST) to support the creative process. It is intended to be administered after a participant has finished using a CST.

The CSI consists of two parts: a rating scale section and a paired comparison section. When a participant fills out the CSI, they will begin by answering 12 rating scale questions, which assess 6 different factors: Collaboration, Enjoyment, Exploration, Expressiveness, Immersion, and Results Worth Effort. Afterwards, they will fill out a paired comparison section, where the participant will compare each factor against the other for a total of 15 comparisons. In these comparisons, they are asked which factor was the most important to them, for the activity that they just completed.

About This Version

This version of the CSI has been lengthened since its original 2009 publication. Our current version has also been extensively validated using many standard psychometric approaches. We are currently in the process of submitting this new version to a journal. In the mean time, if you have any questions about the CSI development or validation, please feel free to contact me.

Electronic Version of the CSI

Reference

You can feel free to reference the original 2009 publication.

Erin A. Carroll, Celine Latulipe, Richard Fung, & Michael Terry. Creativity Factor Evaluation: Towards a Standardized Survey Metric for Creativity Support. In Proceedings of ACM Creativity & Cognition 2009, 10 pages, October 2009.