Week 8- Ideas
In today’s class we were introduced to a new mini project. This project is to show our pitch and presentation skills. This pitch involves us pitching an idea to a new digital product.
This digital product can be anything such as:
- A website
- Native application for a phone, watch or tablet etc
- A Web App
- Saas
- Ebook
- Printed Book
- Cards
- Physical product
- Packaging system
- Game such as an app or board game etc
- Connected product
When thinking of ideas for the digital product you should always take risks, explore multiple ideas and approaches to a design problem and don’t be afraid to fail. If there is a different or unusual way to do something why not try it out and explore that idea. It is easier to simplify and dumb down an idea that it is to make a boring idea or concept exciting.
The first thing before starting to think of an idea is to remember you can’t create and edit at the same time. You must create first then edit later.
There are various tasks and exercises that can be carried out to help think of ideas and get your creative juices flowing.
Mind mapping
You should start with mind mapping your ideas this is a quick simply way to generate different ideas, no idea is wrong just write it down and you can look back on it later.
Pros to mind mapping:
- Logical associations
- Categorised
- Fast
- Visual order
- Radiates out from central issues or problem
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is another good way to produce ideas, you can do this by writing down a different idea on a sticky note then after your creative juices have ran out stick them up somewhere and look at all your ideas collectively.
Pros to brainstorming:
- Spontaneous
- Good where time is limited
- Encourages discussion
- Encourages free thinking
- Unexpected ideas
- Collaborative
Visual Thinking
After you get some kind of idea of what you want to create you can move onto visual thinking. This is looking at visual elements related to your idea such as pictures, colours, textures, typography. This stage can be done on Pinterest, Google or sites such as Dribble or Behance.
Pros to visual thinking:
- Design inspiration
- Moodboards
- Helps find the overall feel of the product
Sketching
Next you should carry out sketches of your idea and create lots of intial sketches of what you want the product to look like.
Pros to sketching:
- Quick
- Very visual
- Easy to interpret
- Easy to edit/ add to
- Can make lots of iterations
Connections & Associations
Making Connections
Making connections is useful when starting out your own project, when making connections between different things involved in the project such as human need, target audience and medium. By making these connections it connects the product to the real world, the users and their surroundings.
For example: Education + 25-3 + platform game + smartphone = A casual game for language learning which is targeted at young professionals who have to collect words and assemble sentences to progress to the next level.
Associations
- Start by searching through a dictionary, google images or by using a random word generatoe to get random words or images to help generate ideas. You should do this exercise for around 30 seconds to 2 minutes then do the same process again.
- Next you will mash these two ideas together by generating a list of different elements such as technology, laws, existing services and society, after this you should write these examples around each element
For example, Technology = Phones, Laptops, 3D printers and Society = Trains, Cars, Schools
Worst Way
This style of exercise involves coming up with the worst possible solution to a problem, the benefits to this helps to relieve anxiety around the thought of any ideas not being good enough but doing the complete opposite. This task can be done collaboratively and have a competition to whoever will think of the stupidest and most unthinkable idea and then you try and invert the results from this.
Another ‘worst way’ exercise is negative brainstorming, this involves discovering the negative or unintended consequences of a product. A good example of this type of task is streaming services leading to more people staying indoors to watch content which results in lacking social engagement. You are then going to look for a solution to this problem within the context of the service and product such as a ‘watch party’ features.
Another inverted way of coming up with an idea is negative brainstorming. This is an exercise in discovering the negative or unintended consequences of a product. An example of this may be streaming services leading to more people staying indoors to watch content and lacking social engagement. You are then looking for a solution to this problem within the context of the product/service such as ‘watch party’ features.
What i…f? How might we…?
This task involves asking questions or re-phrasing a design problem with different words can take the weight off expecting a solution and allow you to explore possibilities. For example you may ask yourself ‘How might we create a Netflix for travel agents?’ or ‘What if a store had no checkouts?’.
Inspiration
Trying to find inspiration for new ideas can be hard, so to get your creative juices flowing you can go on a walk or explore a new area or other disciplines. You should put the problem at the back of your mind and let your subconscious do all the thinking, for example many of amazing ideas will come to you when your doing something basic such as having a shower or cleaning. Don’t beat yourself up about not being able to think of anything initiative instead take a step back and carry out another task and more than likely a few ideas will pop into your head.
Another approach to this is to break the problem or topic into smaller sections, so instead of brainstorming a big question ask smaller more personal questions. These smaller questions can lead to more open discussions and subsequently evolve into bigger ideas and answers.
Osborne Checklist
The Osborne checklist is a big list of questions that are devised by Alex Osborn who was a pioneer of brainstorming and creative thinking. This checklist is often recognised by SCAMPER and is great for creating new products.
S—Substitute: What element within the product can be swapped with something else and what would happen?
C—Combine: What can be combined and how would this affect the product?
A—Adapt: What aspects of the product can be adapted to a different context and how?
M—Modify: What can be modified to improve the product?
P—Put to other uses: Are there any other uses this product can serve?
E—Eliminate: Is there anything within the product that can be removed to make it simpler?
R—Rearrange or reverse: What can be reversed or rearranged to make this product better?