The purpose of the present study was to elucidate the auxiliary effects that the application of three-dimensional computer-aided design (3D-CAD) had on students' creative design, and the differences in the effects of 3D-CAD on students with different representational abilities (RAs). An unequal-group pretest-posttest quasi-experiment design was developed to analyze 215 students studying in an anonymous senior high school in Taipei City, Taiwan. The findings of the present study were as follows: 1. The students' RAs achieved a moderate and positive correlation with their creative performance (CP), with increased correlation between RAs and the functionality and expressiveness constructs of CP and CP with the iconic representation (IR) construct of RAs. 2. 3D-CAD evidently improved the students' CP, particularly their expressiveness and functionality. 3. During 3D-CAD intervention, the students with low RAs performed similarly to those with high RAs in terms of novelty and expressiveness. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.