Ideation for all!
As adults we can take for granted the process of coming up with ideas and organising our thoughts. We become familiar and comfortable with the process and unless we make the effort to try new strategies for creating ideas, we don’t.
Luckily for me, I’m enrolled in a digital design unit this trimester, ACG703, in which the final assessment is a journey around the main pillar of design thinking – ideation.
Yep, ideation, great word huh! I’d never heard of the word before this unit, but turns out it has been around since the 1800s. It simply refers to the process of creating and generating ideas, and is totally a part of my vocabulary now.
A single topic can be explored thoroughly by using various ideation techniques. There are endless frameworks and models to help our ideation. Below are some examples of my own ideation on the topic “Do you have the time?” for use in my final assessment.
Time-lapse of my own ideation process
Brainstorming v. mindmapping
I’ll start here because it was the biggest learning for me – what I thought was brainstorming is actually mind mapping! Making a mind map is when you place a word in the centre, and spur off groups of ideas related to the word. Brainstorming though is placing a word in the centre, then spurring a mind association off of it, and another association off of that word etc. which leaves you with ideas completely unrelated to the initial word etc. which leaves you with ideas completely unrelated to the initial word.
For example…
Rhyming and antonyms
Sometimes thinking directly about the idea can end in a dead end. These two techniques keep the creative juices flowing. They allow more ideas to surface and intertwine with the original topic.
Visual Sketching
Through out the word generating process, I would take ideas I thought I could draw and sketched them out. These could lead to other ideas so was a great way to continue the creative flow.
Questioning and more sketching
I love this style of ideation because I’m always full of questions. rattling off as many as I could think of was really helpful to get concepts surrounding the topic onto the page. I started with WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY HOW and then added Can you SMELL HEAR TOUCH TASTE SEE it? Then I took the ideas from this session and sketched them out.