What is Ideation?
Ideation is a crucial component of design thinking. It’s the third phase during the process of design thinking. This is the stage where new ideas and solutions are generated. Facilitating a truly productive ideation session isn’t easy.
The process of ideation involves generating many ideas. Above all, the team can filter and cut down these ideas into the best, most practical, or most innovative ones. By doing so, inspire new and better design solutions and products. The goal of ideation is to generate a lot of potential solutions to a given problem.
By using ideation, you will ask the right questions and innovate with a strong focus on your users, their needs, and your insights about them. Increase the innovation potential of your solution, by looking beyond the obvious solutions. Drive the team forward and bring together the perspectives and strengths of team members.
Step back and consider why we should question assumptions, ask questions, and challenge our current understandings. With ideation, you start by researching and defining your users and their needs to come up with the right solutions for the users.
Preparing an ideation session
To prepare for the ideation session, it is useful to look at the previous two stages. Construct a meaningful and useful problem statement. This allows you to come up with targeted ideas.
Explore new ideas and solutions instead of saying to design an existing option. Try completing the sentence “How might we…?” with the different aspects of the problem statement. After answering the “How might we?” question, break the problem statement into several smaller actionable sub-questions.
Ideation Techniques
There are several ideation exercises to come up with suitable solutions. Ideation techniques are used to create a list of as many solutions as possible. Afterward, filtering can be done until the most viable options remain.
Brainwriting
Firstly the technique of brainwriting. Everyone gets a sheet of paper and must generate three ideas in five minutes. After this everyone passes their papers to the right and builds on the ideas of their colleagues. Improve or use the ideas as inspiration to generate another three ideas. Continue passing papers until each person has their original back.
Mind Mapping
If you want to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to a central keyword or idea, working with mind mapping is a very good technique. Write the keyword that summarizes the problem or idea in the middle of a board. Draw lines out to new elements that relate to the main problem or idea. Create sub-branches and use lines to show connections.
Crazy Eights
To get a wide range of ideas a sketching technique can be used. The process of coming up with ideas can continue until the ultimate idea is developed. Divide a sheet of A4 paper into eight squares. Let everyone fill in the eight sections with rough sketches. Give them five minutes for this. After sketching the eight ideas, give each participant two stickers and let them choose their two favorite ideas.
In conclusion, prepare an ideation session with the ”How might we…?” question and use techniques to come up with new ideas and solutions. After that, complete the design thinking process by prototyping and most importantly, testing the idea or solution.