Design thinking is a process to help identify problems and work
towards solutions by putting the audience first.
We've defined the problem and the audience.
Now let's learn to ideate and prototype possible solutions.
The ideation stage is essentially brainstorming
and challenging ourselves to come up with as many ideas as possible.
At this stage, the ideas aren't judged as good or bad, nor are we trying to find a final solution.
That will come later.
We're opening our minds
linking our research and sharing thoughts based on what we've learned so far.
This part of the design thinking process is often the most fun.
It's thinking big about what could be without constraints. There's hundreds of techniques.
Let's look at a few of the most popular.
Start a brainstorm template in Canva or grab a pen and paper.
It's time to unload all your ideas in one place.
Don't worry about being neat and don't hold back. Aim for quantity rather than quality.
Try this alone or collaborate in a team and bounce off other people's ideas.
The aim is to exhaust your ideas.
Get them all out -- the good and the bad.
Now try word association to get more ideas.
Write down a list of words to do with your problem, your audience, or from your brainstorm.
Try to come up with words that are associated with those words,
then come up with more associated words from this new list. Pretty soon, you'll have a lot.
Now see if you can combine words from different lines to spark new ideas.
This method finds links you can't see in a normal brainstorm session.
The worst possible idea is a fun method that lists
ridiculous ideas. Ask yourself what is the worst possible solution for this problem.
Once you have a list of terrible ideas, you can try and mirror them by writing
down their polar opposite, effectively turning the worst ideas into the best.
Just make sure your client doesn't see the first list.
Remember, we don't only use words to ideate. Sketching allows us to unload ideas visually,
quickly transferring ideas out of our heads and onto the page.
Our sketches can be as basic as a stick figure or grid layout.
During the ideation stage, we should be challenging assumptions about our ideas,
design, and audience.
Why do I think that way or why do I like or dislike this idea?
Put questions like these to the test. This can happen before brainstorming or
be used to analyze potential solutions.
Whichever technique is used, when there's a lot of ideas, sort the results.
Group ideas together that have similar directions or themes.
Choose ideas that solve the problem best and kick others off the list.
When you have a few you feel good about, it's time to go to the next stage.
Prototypes are mock-up of design solutions.
They don't need to be perfect. By seeing our ideas in action, we can quickly see
whether they work. We can continue to adapt and improve during the prototyping stage.
Testing helps assess how other people might respond to designs.
We're trying to predict and observe reactions before the effort of making it for real.
We get it wrong in the prototype stage and it doesn't cost much to fix.
Get it wrong in the final output and it could be very costly in time and money.
Get creative with testing. It could be as simple as showing your design to a friend or co-worker
or it could be as complex as getting a focus group together
made up of the target market you hope to engage.
Ultimately, we're looking for responses similar to real-world scenarios.
Testing prototypes gives us information about whether to continue with or revisit designs.
For example, we might discover that our idea is too confusing for the audience.
We wouldn't have known this if we hadn't tested, observed interactions,
or had conversations with our target market along the way.
We can always go back to the earlier steps in the design cycle.
Reframe the problem, ideate, and start fresh with new prototypes.