Ideation. Donald A. Norman (of the Nielsen Norman Group) and Roberto Verganti (Politecnico di Milano) have jointly published a paper entitled “Incremental and Radical Innovation: Design Research versus Technology and Meaning Change“, based on a talk presented at the Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces conference in Milan, June 2011.
Ideation. Critics have been slamming brainstorming almost as long as it's been around. They say it doesn't work. That working in solitude generates more ideas than a brainstorm. The problem, however, isn't whether brainstorming works or not.
Featured
Ideation. There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
Ideation. Writing (words), sketching (pictures) and making (things), the activities of design are all manifestations of the same thing. On the surface of it, they all involve a translation of thoughts into something tangible. They are forms of communication, but I would argue that they also constitute actual thinking and are a useful form of thinking.
Ideation. “The way to have good ideas is to have lots of ideas. ” That’s one of my favorite axioms and, in my experience, it is universally true. I have many ideas, every day, and some of them are very good. Mostly, though, they are bad.
Ideation. A few days ago, a friend of mine told me a story about their first visit to IDEO. At one point in their tour they saw a dozen Design Researchers standing in a makeshift kitchen, each holding a different brand of frying pan, flipping pancakes over and over again. There was one person watching and taking notes on a clipboard. Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it? Almost like a scene from Kitchen Stories.
Ideation. When you are known as a writer on creativity, people send you things. Recently I was forwarded a link to AquaNotes, a waterproof notepad you can put in your shower. I’ve never used one, but I can tell you the science behind why people get ideas in the shower. Technically speaking we get ideas all the time – that’s what it means to be conscious.
Books. I’ve been around for awhile, and have stacks of books claiming to spark design skills and creative thinking. Most end up in the back corner of the shelf, never living up to their promise. I’m impressed, and happy to say, Creative Workshop: 80 challenges to sharpen your design skills, book is a different breed. It’s authored by David Sherwin, who runs the Change Order design blog.
Ideation. By Mark Baskinger Purposeful play through experimentation can be exciting and rewarding, and stimulates creativity. A number of years ago, the design team at GE Appliances showed me a collection of sculptural objects they had recently constructed during an afternoon work session.
Ideation. A copy of Mental Notes just arrived on my desk and it looks like a great little design tool. The mental notes are a stack of 52 cards which can be used in conceptualization phases to help with idea generation. Each card conveys an inspirational thought related to psychology that touches upon such themes as: persuasion, comprehension, memory, attention and comprehension.
The end