Ideation
Concept 1
In week 8 we looked at how to go about coming up with an idea for a product to pitch in week 12. We looked at lots of different ideation methods like mind mapping brainstorming, visual thinking etc. and I had tried a method in class that was new to me which was pulling random words out of a hat and trying to make connections between them in the hopes of coming up with a viable product idea, or at least just to get the ball rolling like it was in my case.
The words myself and my class mates sitting at the same table were given the words Health, Documentary, Gps and Under 10 and we had to come up with an idea for a product connecting them all. My idea was for a a special children’s smart watch and connected mobile application that allows children with chronic health issues to live more freely while allowing their parents monitoring of their current well being by the watches ability to check vitals and temperature. There were a lot of other ideas I had for this product but we’d be here all day and I didn’t go with this concept in the end so that’s enough context.
Concept 2
When I got home to my room I subconsciously practiced another form of ideation by deriving inspiration from the the world around me… Or in my case, my phone and my room. You see I had recently go this massive, and i mean MASSIVE Marvel Emypre Omnibus with special Dm variant cover by Jim Cheung (the OG artist who created the Young Avengers along with the OG writer Allan Heinberg). I was really exited about this book and when it came I wouldn’t have time to read it till January, every now and again I couldn’t help myself and flick through it a little.
It was around this time that I went on my phone.
There’s this app I have on there called Letterboxd which is an app I use to rate and keep a diary of the movies I watch as well as see what movies are newly released and/or trending and what everyone thinks about them.
I started to think “what if there was an app like Letterboxed with all the features I mentioned but for comic books?” I also thought it would be cool if this app gave people the ability to create and share their own curated reading lists and there was a space for friendly discussion and debate that gave a fun and welcoming environment to new and long time comic book fans alike. I was getting really fond of this idea as it would be an app I’d download in a heart beat myself.
That said I had another Idea….
Concept 3
I at some point I began to recall a discussion I had with my mum last summer about the struggles and frustrations my granny has when dealing with new doctors or medical professionals that aren’t aware of her (rather extensive) medical history that spans her now 83 years of life. My mum and myself thought it was ridiculous that doctors will expect an 83 year old women who has has gone through a lot of different procedures in her life time to recall any and all of them in a stress full situation like being in a hospital. Mum was like ” that’s an app idea for you now, something to make this experience easier for Granny and anyone in a similar boat as her”.
I decided that this product concept would be the best to continue developing as I didn’t really care much for the first one ad I really liked the second one but it was based on my own interests and wants and although I do find things easier to work on when I’m passionate about topic, I’m also passionate about finding solutions to problems and helping people by full filling their needs so I felt it best to go with my 3 idea.
Fleshing Out My Concept
After picking a concept I had to figure out the specifics of what my app was going to do/ offer users.
I decided to have a sort of casual interview with my granny and my mum to discuss the frustrations my granny has that I previously mentioned, what would make it easier and any other things to consider.
During the interview I wrote out a sort of brain storm of things we discussed as well as ideas I had while the conversation unraveled further. I also did wrote out down my app idea and considered the ui a little…
From all this I determined that my product would be a medical record and health tracking app for people with health problems, particularly elderly people so it’s very important to consider accessibility because a lot of older people art tech savvy.
SWOT Analysis
I then did a S.W.O.T analysis of my product concept to see if it was worth continuing on to the research for further proof of concept phase…
