For the second half of today’s class, we had to put into action what we had learnt in this morning’s lecture.
Our task for this afternoon was to use the concept of idea generation to get our ideas flowing in preparation for beginning the process of creating our own product to pitch in week 12.
To make us think outside our natural comfort zone, Daniel had pre-made up a box of coloured post-it notes, with each colour having a different meaning. the Yellow being the product’s purpose, the Orange being the target audience, and the green and pink being two different aspects of the product. This then created the requirements for our product at complete random and allowed us to have fun thinking of crazy ideas based on them, and then refining them into original ideas that could work that we would have not otherwise thought of.
Our first range of post-it notes had the subject of science, aimed at students, that included horror and GPS. At first we were a bit stuck as we felt the four words were a very random mix and didn’t know how to create a product that fitted these requirements.
We thought the best way to start was to create a mind map of the first things we thought of when we looked at the words. This then morphed into some ideas that could potentially work in a real-life product.
EG one of our ideas using these requirements was a track and trace app aimed at student that sent anonymous alerts if you had come in contact with someone who had recently tested positive for an STD. Based on the individual student’s situation, they then could decide if it is necessary for them to also go and get tested.
Another product idea was creating a jewellery line that had secret GPS tracking in them incase students got spiked and lost their phone. we thought this would be a good idea in the student community as if they get spiked they are very likely to lose their phone or have it taken off them, making them untraceable. These pieces of jewellery would be very subtle and people would not know the difference between it and a normal piece of jewellery. Family or Friends that you have given the GPS code to can then track your location if they are concerned.
Our next set of post-it notes had the subject of health, aimed at women, that included action and a movement tracker.
Once having settled into this task, we felt this round was a little easier. We used a different method this time were we all got a pile of post-its and wrote ideas on them.
Our ideas included creating an app for women to keep them safe on nights out by using a GPS tracker and connecting it with friends phones so that you can locate your friends at all times and they can locate you, incase you all get separated.
Another idea was updating a female-aimed app that included mental health advice, as well as menstrual advice or pregnancy advice, especially aimed at those who may not have had the blessing of having a mother-figure in their life during these times of change.
Reflection
This was a really beneficial task for us as it put us in the right mind set to go on and think of our own product to create for our pitch. It has reassured me and gave me confidence that I can think of a range of different ideas whilst having the skills to Reine them and model them into an app that fits the requirements. It has motivated me to use these techniques during the beginning process of my own designing as I found them very successful to get ideas out of me.