From idea to prototype

A technique for turning a problem or an insight into an open, optimistic question that invites ideas: “How might we…?”

Output

Open questions that invite ideas

Avoid

Putting the solution inside the question (“How might we build an app that…?”).

A group session to generate many ideas about a problem, leaving judgment for later.

Output

A long list of ideas about a problem

Avoid

Letting the most senior person speak first.

Brainstorming in writing: six people write three ideas in five minutes and pass the sheet on so the next person can build on them.

Output

Sheets of written ideas that build on one another

Avoid

Voting without having read all the sheets.

Fold a sheet into eight panels and draw a variation of an idea in each one, at one minute per sketch.

Output

Eight sketched variations of an idea

Avoid

Spending the time drawing well.

A list of seven questions for generating ideas from something that already exists: substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, and rearrange.

Output

Variations of something that already exists, one per question

Avoid

Filling in the seven letters as a formality.

A diagram that starts from a central topic and opens it up into branches of related ideas, from the general to the specific.

Output

A diagram of ideas branching out from a central topic

Avoid

Confusing it with an affinity diagram: here the branches grow from a topic, not from the data.

Each person spreads a limited number of dots (stickers or marks) among the displayed options; those with the most dots move on to the next phase.

Output

A selection of ideas ranked by support

Avoid

Voting in turns and in full view, because the first dots sway everyone else.

Three criteria an idea must balance: it meets what people need and want, it can be built with the available means, and the organization can sustain it.

Avoid

Using it as a quick vote, without data.

A way of running a group discussion: everyone adopts the same mode of thinking at once, represented by a colored hat, and they switch it as they go.

Output

An orderly discussion that looks at a topic through several ways of thinking

Avoid

Using the hats to label people (“you are the black hat”).

Drawing ideas in a quick, cheap and open way to explore many of them and discuss them before committing to one.

Output

Many quick sketches of ideas to compare and discuss

Avoid

Polishing in a digital tool before you have several ideas.

A sequence of panels that shows a person using a product or a service in context, step by step.

Output

A sequence of panels showing use, step by step

Avoid

Drawing only screens instead of the situation.

Building quick, incomplete versions of an idea, from a paper sketch or a cardboard mock-up to something that works, to answer a design question before developing the idea.

Output

Prototypes, from a sketch to something that works

Avoid

Polishing the look when you don't yet know if the idea works.

A scale prototype, made with cardboard, building pieces, or figures, on which the team moves the characters step by step to rehearse a service from start to finish.

Output

A model of the service and a list of changes

Avoid

Polishing the model: it takes time away from playing.

Ideating in the real place, or a similar one, and acting out the situations and ideas there with your body, instead of imagining them from a meeting room.

Output

Ideas tried out physically in the real place

Avoid

Doing it without research data: you would be acting out your assumptions.

A method in which real people try to do specific tasks with a product while being observed, to find out where they get stuck and why.

Output

A list of usability problems, with where they appear and why

Avoid

Asking “do you like it?”: measure what people do, not what they think.

The team, and sometimes users, act out a situation with simple or cardboard objects to imagine how a product or service would work.

Output

Acted-out situations that show how an idea would work

Avoid

Turning it into theater without a design question.

A short set of rules, drawn from research and the project's values, that guide design decisions so they are consistent.

Avoid

Writing principles so general that anyone would agree (“be easy to use”).