A more organised way to ideate
A quick canvas to use for brainstorming
In 2017, I was commissioned to conduct a 3-day Design Thinking workshop for college students in Bacolod City, Philippines. Having seen that it was a mixed group from different programs, I knew that I cannot expect everyone to be design-inclined. Before we went on to do the 5-step Design Thinking process workshop, we did a one-hour crash course to serve as a start state. I also wanted to see what their current levels were; sort of like a pre and post-test. It was after this crash course that I saw that we might face challenges during the Ideation Stage.
If you’re into Design Thinking, you know that Ideation employs divergent thinking. It’s a manner of thinking that’s quick and meant to deliver a lot of wild and wacky ideas. It’s a phase where we’re expected to break out of the box and explore ideas we never thought of before.
What’s an Idea?
Peachy Pacquing, Masters’ Program Director of Hyper Island Singapore defines an idea as “the unexpected combination of previously unconnected thoughts, which puts a particular thing in a new and involving context”. This means for something to be called an idea, it has to satisfy these requirements:
- It has to connect two or more concepts that are not usually seen together — Ideas are created not gathered and that’s why they’re unique. And as creations, they need to be a compound of concepts. Putting together concepts that are usually seen together already (ex.: parenthood and love, education and books) are truisms, not ideas; hence they don’t produce another layer of meaning. To produce this new layer of meaning, ideas need to be unexpected (ex. parenthood and space exploration = being parents is a journey into the unknown; education and lotion = education as a soothing element to one’s body). This can go on!
- It needs to borne out of a defined situation — Stomping one’s feet on a grill is an unexpected action but without a reason, it doesn’t really mean anything. This is why context is important. Context situates ideas in a particular moment and place in time. This adds even another layer of meaning to ideas. For artists, their ideas come from their personal situations and their perceptions of the world; while for designers, context is usually defined by user needs.
An easy guide to build ideas
Now, for non-designers like the students I workshopped back then, putting together these abstract concepts are a challenge. So to make it easier for them, I created a guide to help them with their ideation. Here’s my Ideation Matrix:
The first row shows the different types of ideas one can think of when doing Design Thinking. One can think of products — usually small tangible objects or tools, spaces — create or redesign physical areas like interiors, floor plans, or modules, services — new ways to do something for others, or systems — strings of action resulting to an output.
The first column shows three ways of putting together concepts to form ideas. The first way is through Addition — simply adding something unexpected to anything existing. The second way is by Combination. Combining is putting together concepts to creating something new, which is neither and both of the concepts you put together, a hybrid. The third way is by moving the concept to a different context. This means using or doing something in ways it wasn’t originally intended to.
By crossings between these two areas, we can think of all different kinds of ideas. Feel free to use them in your ideation sessions.
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