Some would say the most fun part of Design Thinking is ideating. With rules like ‘no judgment,’ ‘everyone is welcome,’ and ‘the more outlandish an idea, the better,’ it’s hard not to enjoy the process. On top of these pressure-free rules, the goal is to think up as many ideas as possible.
In my experience at an advertising agency, people from all different teams with all different backgrounds would come together to focus and generate various solutions. No matter what ideation technique was used, brainwrite, brainwalk, etc., everyone worked together. The better ideas rose to the top and become more robust. The outlandish ideas made every laugh but were still accepted. Everyone walked away from the session with the feeling that they helped the team and contributed to the problem’s greater good.
On the contrary, I have only ever had terrible experiences ideating when judgment was cast, thus breaking the rules. In the end, creativity was stifled, and no useful ideas could be generated. Additionally, at my old agency, we had a unique rule that the client could not attend the ideation session. No matter how open-minded that person might have been, the team members felt they needed to be on their best behavior therefore, they were not carefree in their imagination. The key to successful ideation is to allow people to be comfortable, feel accepted, and remember that there are no bad ideas.
What is Ideation?
According to the Interaction Design Foundation, “Ideation is a creative process where designers generate ideas in sessions.” It allows designers to create a variety of ideas to consider quickly. During the process, you are thinking of the user, their needs, and how to solve their issues.
You ideate in order to transition from identifying problems to creating solutions for your users. Ideation is your chance to combine the understanding you have of the problem space and people you are designing for with your imagination to generate solution concepts.
– d.school, An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE
Why Ideate?
The process of asking questions and generating a variety of ideas helps designers work to exhaust all possibilities. They can then feel confident that they’ve looked at the problem at various angles and have a viable solution. These ideas can be expanded to inspire better design solutions.
How to begin
To keep designers aligned during the ideations process, it is crucial to complete the first two steps of Design Thinking, Empathize and Define. The ideating team needs to understand the problem they are solving to be able to generate viable ideas.
Recently, I defined the problems of three different apps, Libby, Squarespace, and Crossy Road by creating two different Point of View statements for each. With a clear definition of the problem, I was able to start ideating. While there is a vast amount of ideation techniques, I focussed on these six:
- Braindump- Write down every idea that comes to mind for 3 minutes. Select the most favorable ideas and build off of them for three more minutes.
- SCAMPER- This acronym stands for: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. Each step prompts you to look at the problem from a different angle.
- Worst Possible Idea- Participants think of the worst possible solution, which helps relieve the anxiety some people have when brainstorming.
- Mind Map- Starting with the main topic in the center of a page, begin branching ideas from it. Then create subtopics branched from those topics, and keep going. The mind map shows how one idea can trigger another. You can then find relationships between ideas for more new ideas.
- Creative Pause- Take a step back from ideating and give your brain a break. It will help break any patterns you may be stuck in. Instead, work on something else or go for a walk.
- Sketch- Quick drawings with little detail meant to convey an idea. Since precision and detail are not factors, the designer can keep drawing multiple sketches to generate lots of ideas.
Here’s one example from my ideation session:
Libby Point Of View Statement
Bibliophiles who read multiple books a week need a more robust search feature because the current search function works best if you know the book title but not by author or genre.
After putting six different ideation techniques to the test, I was most surprised with the SCAMPER method. My most unique idea came from SCAMPER while I was ideating for Libby. I feel creating a reader profile would be an excellent solution to help avid readers find new books. After readers complete a survey, the app would make book suggestions. This ‘user profile’ idea could easily be expanded into a useful feature.
Overall, each ideation technique met the goal of creating multiple solutions, no matter how outlandish. I enjoy the process of letting every off-the-wall idea out and putting no judgment on myself or the idea. Once one idea was out of my head, I had more room to keep generating more ideas that could potentially lead to something great.
