C reativity is still one of the most mysterious subjects in human thinking behavior. Researchers from many fields have worked in the study of creativity, including those from psychometrics, cognitive science, biology, education, history, philosophy, social-cultural studies 1-3 , artificial intelligence 4,5 and neuroscience 6 . Since few of these studies are interdisciplinary investigations of creativity, Gardner suggests a multilevel framework which includes neural, cognitive, emotional, social, and cultural perspectives, in order to examine this human behavior more thoroughly 3 . Following Simon's pioneering studies, more recently, the study of creativity has been expanded to the areas of design computation 7-14 and design education 15 . Simon and his associates describe creative behavior as a particular search and implement this view using a computer program 4,5 . On the other hand, creativity has also been examined within a social-cultural framework 16,17 . In some sense, the two views regarding the same enterprise, creativity, are conflicting. The major gap between Simon's and Csikszentmihalyi's approaches to creativity is that they address different perspectives of creativity. Simon focuses on the personal level, whereas Csikszentmihalyi pays much more attention to the social-cultural level of creativity. Therefore, while Simon tries to answer 'what is creativity?' Csikszentmihalyi seems more interested in addressing the question of 'where is creativity?' 3 . 1 Sternberg, R J (ed.) The nature of creativity Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, MA (1988) 2 Health, T Social aspects of creativity and their impact on creativity modeling creativity. In Gero, J S and Maher, M L (eds) Modelling creativity and knowledge-based creative design Erlbaum, Hillsdale NJ (1993) pp 9-23 3 Gardner, H Creating minds Basic Books, New York (1993) 4 Newell, A, Shaw, J C and Simon, H A The process of creative thinking. In Gruber, H, Terrell, G and Wertheimer, M (eds) Contemporary approaches to creative thinking Atherton Press,