We’re All in This Together: Evaluating the Dynamics of Designers' Moods Throughout the Collaborative Design Process and Their Impact on Project Outcomes

In this article, we use sentiment analysis to understand the change in moods of individual designers and teams throughout a collaborative design project. Although there is much research on design psychology, the impact of psychological and emotional characteristics on creativity, and group affective tone, there is limited longitudinal research on the dynamic nature of mood and affective tone over the course of a design project. This leaves a gap in our understanding of how the complex mood states and interactions of mood states among team members affect the ability of the team to work together effectively and achieve expected design outcomes. Research that fills this gap can help improve design outcomes and educational strategies. Thus, a longitudinal study was conducted using the self-reflections of student teams collected from three different points over the course of a semester-long design project, to understand how the variation in designers' moods during a collaborative project design activities influence design project outcomes and quality of collaborative work. Our results show that time was a significant predictor of change in moods among teams, but not for individuals. We also show that divergence of team members' moods with respect to tone, positive tone, and negative emotion were negatively related to project outcomes. These results provide a foundation for future systematic investigations of team-based affect on design outcomes and show how design can be viewed through the lens of symbolic Interactionism, evident in how team members create meaning and shared understanding within the design context.