Idea Generation Part 2

Sophia Corrao
Nov 3 · 7 min read

How Might We Statements

In order to create my “How Might We…?” questions, I had to look back on my User Research Assignment, and look at the major insights I made. The bolded and italicized text is what I found:

From these major insights, I curated two “How Might We…?” Questions:

“How Might We…?” Questions

Brainstorming Session Set Up

Screenshot of Brainstorming session scheduled into my Calendar App

My first attempt at a brainstorming session did not turn out how I would’ve liked it to. Originally, I was planning on hosting the session on Thursday at 6:00 p.m, but three of the people I tried scheduling the session with cancelled on me. So, I decided to hold the session on Saturday instead. I was able to get 4 participants (including me) to do it on Saturday night around 8:20 p.m.

I gathered a few essential materials for the session:

  1. Sticky Notes
  2. Four markers (all different colors)
  3. 4 chairs
  4. A timer
  5. My notebook

Because the brainstorming session had to be rescheduled last minute, I decided to hold the session in my dorm room. The room was an acceptable size for hosting 4 people, including myself. My plan was to explain the purpose of the session first, do the warm-up activities, conduct ideation, and then organize the ideas. The Job Interview game and the 1-Word Stories game were the two warm-up games, not including my own, that I wanted to perform. The goal was to spend 5 minutes explaining the session/answering questions, around 20 minutes conducting warm-up activities, 30 minutes ideating, and 5 minutes categorizing the drawings. In the end, my dorm room was probably a beneficial atmosphere, because there are many objects (decorations, appliances, clothes, etc.) around the room. This gave the 4 of us visual content and inspiration.

My group members were:

Elaina: a high school senior at the School of Environmental Studies.

Angela: a freshman student at the UMN in the College of Liberal Arts.

Sarah: a Liberal Arts freshman at the UMN. She is also my roommate.

Original Warm-Up Activity

It was hard to develop a game that was not the same idea as any other warm-up I had done previously, because all of the other warm-up games were good for the brainstorming session. I decided to combine the objectives and rules behind multiple games to create my own.

Much like Charades, one person in a group stands around the group of people. The person in the middle must demonstrate a physical movement. The other group members must come up with a logical description that matches the physical movement of the action. Once all of the surrounding group members have named off an action that matches the movement, another person must go into the middle. This pattern continues until every participant has gone into the middle.

Visual for the game

Key Elements of The Session

  1. Explaining the session

This gave me the opportunity to explain the purpose of the 1-Hour Brainstorming session. During this time, I answered any questions that my peers had.

  1. Conducting Warm-up Activities

The first warm-up was 1-Word Stories. I noticed that a couple of people took a while to come up with the next word for a sentence, because they were putting too much thought into it. They wanted their contribution to be unique and well-thought out in every turn. Halfway through the game, I reminded everyone to not overthink their answer, because the exchange of words was supposed to be at a fast pace. Over time, everyone got better with the speed of the game.

Our next game was the Job Interview game. I explained that there would be an interviewer and an interviewee. Whenever the interviewer asked a question, regarding the interviewee’s non-existent job application, the interviewee would have to respond to the question with, “yes, and…..”.

3. Drawing & Group Ideation

Before we started the drawing time, I made a few announcements:

  • Don’t store ideas, share them
  • Do not discourage others’ ideas. Your ideas might be radical/weird/unconventional, but any idea is an idea, which makes it valid. It is okay to generate odd ideas.
  • We will not be evaluating other’s ideas
  • I encourage you to build on others’ ideas. This is great in collaboration.
The participants drawing out ideas on sticky notes

Before I started the timer, I shared my “How Might We…?” questions with the group. I told them that we were going to generate ideas that give solutions to what the questions were asking. At first, they were generating ideas that advertised an “anti-adolescent” theme. They thought that the solution was to prevent children from using the product. Because of this, I had to reiterate the question at times. So, I asked my peers, “what do kids like? What is a pre-existing kids product? What do kids do?” Elaborating on the original question seemed to inspire more ideas. I suggested that they look around the room at different objects to gain inspiration.

During the idea doodling time, my peers were skeptical of my enthusiasm towards all of their ideas. There were times when they felt that their ideas were “bad” and “stupid”. I wanted them to feel validated to encourage their willingness to share and create.

Sticky Notes After 25 Minutes of Drawing & Sharing

There were a total of 53 ideas from the participants.

4. Organizing Ideas

All three of the girls huddled around the door where I displayed the sticky notes, and attempted to silently organize each piece of paper into groups/categories. This activity lasted for 3–4 minutes. They found it difficult to refrain from talking to one another. The different categories were:

  1. Animals (dogs)
  2. Video Game Merchandise
  3. Drug Paraphernalia
  4. Durable Materials
  5. Fashion
  6. Toys/Novelties

Some members took inspiration from video games and toys, while others took a more brand-oriented approach.

(5 of the more comprehensive drawings out of 53)

Top 10 Ideas

When it came to choosing the final 10 ideas, I already had a few ideas in mind. There were a few that I loved, because of their novel characteristics. Others I felt passionate about, because their ideas elevated and improved user experience. I tried my best to choose items that could reach different work-fields, age groups, hobbies, and personal concerns. I also really love the idea of exploring a kid’s market in tape measures, because kids’ products are fun to work with and brainstorm. After gathering the 10 best ideas, I re-drew each of them, and this is the result:

Inspired by “Fruit By The Foot” candy. (taken from Idea Gen. Part 1)
Remote Control Toy Truck Tape Measure (taken from Market Research)
“Twiddle Tape” has buttons, switches, spinning orbs, and more to keep anxious hands busy. (taken from Idea Gen. Part 1)
This is Tape Measure Shoe Attachment (taken from Idea Gen. Part 1)
The Body Band is perfect for measuring the circumference of convex shapes. For example, body measurements. (taken from Idea Gen. Part 1)
Tape Measure with an LED Installation above the mouth of the capsule (taken from Market Research)
Adhesive Tape Measure is, essentially, a roll of tape with US and metric measurements printed into one side. It comes with refillable cartridges. (taken from User Research)
The Sewing Tape Measure is worn like a bracelet, and can be used as a pin cushion and a tape measure. This product is perfect for sewing projects. (inspired by a design from Market Research & Idea Gen. Part 1)
A perfectly nostalgic and novel product. One can make notes on the tape to mark the growth of their child (age, special event, etc.)
Phone camera measures the length of horizontal objects and acts as a simple phone game simultaneously.

~ Schedule ~

Tuesday 10/29: Assigned Idea Generation Part 2

Wednesday: 10/30: Craft 2 “How might we…” statements.

Thursday 10/31: Come up with an original warm-up activity to do with the group. Conduct 1-hour brainstorm session with peers (6:00 p.m)

Friday 11/1: Add pictures to blog, and record what happened during the session. Start curating new ideas. Make a few sketches

Saturday 11/2: Record what happened in the original warm-up activity

Sunday 11/3: Write about how the brainstorming session went, overall. Sketch more ideas

Monday 11/4: Sketch more ideas

Tuesday 11/5: Make final edits to blog post

Wednesday 11/6: Blog Post Due at 10:00 p.m

Thursday 11/7: Present Blog Post in class

~ Outline ~

How Might We Statements

Brainstorming Session Set Up

Original Warm-Up Activity

Key Elements of The Session

Top 10 Ideas

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