The tendency for constraints to spur creativity, David Epstein explains (in Inside the Box), appears in study after study:
In a study reminiscent of Geisel’s Cat in the Hat strategy, participants made more creative rhyming messages when they were required to incorporate a particular word compared to when they had no restrictions.
In a famous study of toy creation, designers were more creative (and worked harder) when they were given five randomly selected components to work with and forced to incorporate all of them, compared to when they were offered a larger set of pieces and allowed to use them however they wanted. “Constraints,” the researchers wrote, “were forcing people off the path of least resistance.”
A study of mechanical inventions was nearly identical, with the most creative results occurring when inventors were given a category (like tools, weapons, or transportation) and made to work with assigned pieces from a larger set.
Inventor Simone Giertz, famous for her wacky robots and ingenious products—like a hinged hanger that folds for small closets—crafted a simple tool to spark ideas: a set of three dice. One die lists objects, another materials, and another properties. Roll the dice and you might have to make a piece of furniture from cardboard that makes music, or a metal art object using no power tools. “If I have just an open field of possibilities, I won’t come up with any new ideas,” Giertz told me. “I made the dice to create as specific a brief as possible. And you can stray from it, but it gives me enough constraints to get started. It’s like if you can cook any meal, you’re probably going to cook something you already know, but if you can only cook with these three ingredients, you’re going to have to come up with something new.”