Ideate

Anything that has been created all started off with an idea, so it makes sense why ideation is an important aspect of the design thinking process. Ideation is an essential part of the design process, both in education and practice. It is defined as the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas. Ideas are thoughts that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation includes all the stages that are part of a thought cycle, starting at innovation to development, to actualization. Without ideation, there would be no ideas, so no creations would be able to be produced.

The ideation phase typically starts out when “…design thinkers spark off ideas — in the form of questions and solutions — through creative and curious activities such as Brainstorms and Worst Possible Idea”, according to the article by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang on interaction-design.org. They go on to describe how ideation is an exciting process, focusing on how the goal is to generate a large number of ideas that will inspire newer, better ideas that can then be cut down into the best, most practical and innovative ones. By using creativity and innovation, it is easier to develop solutions and be able to look beyond the usual methods of solving problems in order to find better working solutions to problems that affect a user's experience.

Just as the Workshopper article states, “…ideating can take much more than just sitting in a room and throwing ideas around with the team. Creating a fruitful ideation session can be tough if you’re not well equipped”. Well-equipped people are familiar with techniques such as BrainSketching, Brainwriting and The Worst Possible Idea, meaning that they have the abilities to generate world-class ideas in no time at all. The article gives a list on all the different processes that can be used in the ideation stage, listing concepts such as brainstorm, braindump, brainwrite, brainwalk, analogies, creative pause, crowdstorm, cheatstorm, bodystorm, and prototyping, which leads into the next step in the design thinking process. The most common ideation process that is often used hand in hand with other processes listed above is ‘how might we’ statements, which focuses on what the client’s needs are and how to resolve the problems they might be facing. The best way to do this is to rephrase the problem as a ‘why might we’ statement, which is where the name derives from. When ideating, it is also important to remember to set the mission, create the right environment, get into the right headspace, and set time constraints. By using all of these processes, one will create solutions in no time.

Of course, ideation as a whole wouldn’t be possible without the help of the creative spirit. Just as The Creative Spirit document says, “no matter who you are, the creative spirit can enter your life. It is at hand for anyone who has the urge to tinker, to explore new possibilities, to leave things a little better than before”. The creative spirit is alive in everyone if they look hard enough for it, since “creative moments are vital to everything we do in any area of life: relationships, family, work, community”.

By putting the creative spirit together with the ideation process, the creative ideas that are made will be successful and original.