HCDE 210: Sprint 3 — Ideation
2/22/16 — Communicating ideas through visuals
by Elleyce Pahang
1. Exploring ideation
Generating & sketching out ideas on paper — Visualizing exercising products
Practicing generating ideas, I explored ideation by creating sketches of wild ideas in relation to human interaction with exercising. In a sketchbook, I first developed ten varied ideas. Afterwords, I decided which idea I thought would be most promising and focused on exercising bike machines for children. I wanted to explore this idea because I believe exercise machines are intimidating to children and that it would be interesting to think of what an exercise machine for kids. Child obesity is a global health issue, thus I focused on that topic and developed ten new sketches. Some issues I had included being unable to sketch ideas out quickly. Constantly worrying whether my ideas were promising, I hindered myself from exploring more ideas. After spending a good amount of time thinking of possible products that may motivate children to take care of their health and exercise, I picked the final sketch based on whether the sketch communicated an idea well and whether the idea would be appealing to the intended users.
PDF of sketches:
2. Reflection — Starting out with wild ideas
Sketching is a form of visual communication that helps explain ideas from a different angle
While generating ideas by putting down my ideas on paper, I came across the issue of being stuck on not knowing what ideas would be most promising. By worrying about whether my ideas would be promising, I put limitations on myself, preventing my creativity from flowing naturally. Thus, I tried to not limit myself by coming up with wild ideas. By worrying less about creating the perfect sketch, I focused on exploring varied ideas. However I believe I did not communicate my ideas through sketches that well because I spent more time writing notes rather than focusing on conveying my ideas mostly through visuals. I noticed that I jotted down a lot of notes to describe and label the products I drew. Thus, I want to explore better sketching techniques and 3-D modeling because my sketches appeared mostly flat and lacked clarity. Overall, this sprint gave me insight about how important visuals are in the design process of communicating ideas.
3. Finding inspiration to create ideas
Asking users about what motivates them to exercise inspired me to design for their needs and performing sketching exercises with different topics sparked connections
When I could not generate ideas, I turned to others to find inspiration. Since this is a human-centered design task, I asked people, “What motivates you to exercise?” Their responses helped fuel my creativity and sped up my process of sketching. One person said that what motivated her most was being able to see numbers as in being constantly reminded of her weight. Thus I sketched a treadmill that also acted as a scale.
Furthermore, during studio, I sketched out different designs for a trash can. Although trash cans are not directly related to the topic of exercising, practicing sketching another subject gave me inspiration by using some elements I usually would not think of unless I had designed for that subject. In studio I focused on making kid-friendly trash cans that encouraged children to pick up after themselves. The element of using children as the users inspired me to focus on creating designs of exercise machines for kids.
4. The importance of sketching with an eye toward ideation in our society
Why is this type of work important?
Sometimes the best way to communicate an idea is through a visual. Sketching with an eye toward ideation helps communicate ideas that are too complex to explain with just words. By giving the designer or engineer a visual, they are able to have a better understanding of what to create. In our society, many users that are disabled need medical aid devices to assist them through daily life. With the help of sketching out ideas, those ideas can inspire people to create physical products that may change the lives of many who need those products to live life with more ease.
