Ideation

Ideation is one of the most fun parts of projects! I like to be able to freely ideate and to use user stories for inspiration.

For ideation, I work both in teams as individual and I like to inspire others with stories from real users as well as be inspired by others through art and technology. Furthermore, I like to keep ideas grounded by looking at possible business plans. 

When ideating I keep the user and their behavior in mind.  As designers we have the possibility and responsibility to shape behavior and (product) interaction and we should use it wisely; for the user’s benefit as well as for the society’s benefit.

Some of the activities I do during ideation:

• Creative warm up through games or fun activities related to the topic.
• Formulate opportunity areas using “How Might We” statements.
• Come up with ‘What-if’s’ to kick start ideation.
• Slot machine; combine elements to come up with ideas (for example benchmarks with what-if’s together).
• Use my ‘Mental shortcut cards’ for inspiration.
• Dragon Den, pitching ideas to each other that are desirable, viable and feasible.
• Collaborative sketching, rotate ideas within 1 minute to build upon each other’s ideas.
• Break the status-quo; by reversing assumptions.

• Creating mock-ups of ideas.