Brainstorming: And Then a Miracle Occurs...


Brainstorming: "And Then a Miracle Occurs..."

There is often a moment of panic once the research is done and the design implications have been teased out. Now the designer has to start digging in and actually designing something. An idea about what the product or service is going to be needs to appear. It's here, in this moment, that a miracle occurs (Figure 4.6).

Figure 4.6. Cartoon by Sidney Harris. © 2003 The New Yorker Collection from cartoonbank.com

Cartoon by Sidney Harris. © 2003 The New Yorker Collection from cartoonbank.com


As the cartoon wryly notes, this is a mysterious process. For some designers, the research and interviews have already started to suggest solutions to pursue. Others, however, may be clueless at this point about how to proceed. For the latter, it may be best to simply plunge into documenting their design (see Chapter 5) and wait for solutions to arise. But most designers live and design somewhere between these two examples. The solutions arise (or at least start) in periods of focused brainstorming.

When brainstorming, designers should have all the research and problem definition documents such as the design brief close at hand and in view (taped to walls perhaps) for reference and inspiration. The hunt statement, too, should be displayed for reference and consideration. Tools for writing and sketching quickly are essential: white boards, sticky notes, blank sheets of paper, pens, pencils, markers, and so on.

Start with a warm-up exercise. For instance, first dwell on the subject at hand in the broadest possible sense. For example, on a project to build a Web site for a museum, spend 10 minutes doing a word association game on what art is or what a museum is. Or do drawings based on famous artists. Or have all the people in the room talk about their best (or worst) experience at a museum. What the exercise is doesn't much matter: the point of the warm-up is to get brains, hands, and mouths engaged before starting to generate ideas.

Set aside a fixed amount of time for brainstormingusually not more than two hours at any given stretch. During that time, try to generate as many ideas and variations on ideas as possible. Don't self-censor or censor others. Sometimes from even terrible ideas, great ideas can later spring.

Stay focused. Put stray thoughts or unrelated ideas into a "parking lot": a physical place in the room where those sorts of wayward ideas can be captured, but not discussed.

Don't spend a lot of time on any one idea. In the initial brainstorming sessions especially, the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible. Save going into depth on any one idea for later. For now, more is, indeed, more.

Use the whole room. Post things up on walls. Simply seeing all the ideas may generate connections between them or generate new ideas. Document what has been done. Take pictures of what gets drawn and put up. This information will be invaluable later.

Where do these ideas come from? From two places: invention (the creation of something wholly new through imagination) and reinvention (the combination of old forms into something new). The latter is far more common. It is always fruitful to ask, "What is this product or service like? What is it not like?" in the search for existing patterns and forms that can be used for the project at hand.

But it is also useful to explore the unknown, to take giant leaps of imagination. To do that requires changing perspective, or how you think about something. For example, stop thinking of a computer as a machine. Don't think of it as a thing at all (if you can). Think of it instead as an action. It is a rush though wires. Or a thrown punch. Now imagine a computer as a thought itself. Is it a jolt? A vision? A nightmare? Changing perspective allows us to toss out convention and gain a fresh look at the project at hand.




Designing for Interaction(c) Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
ISBN: 0321432061
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 110
Authors: Dan Saffer

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