Idea Generation Part 2
How Might We…
- How might we make treating wounds a quicker and more convenient process?
- How might we more conveniently hold, carry, and transport first aid products?
Customers don’t want a drill, they want a hole in their wall.
This statement made me look at my product from a new perspective. What was the end result that customers want? They don’t want a first aid kit, they want to treat their wounds. A first aid kit is just a baseline product to make treating wounds an faster and easier process. It does this by holding all the necessary supplies all in one container so you have everything you need in one spot. I used this perspective to influence my HMW statements. I chose one statement to focus completely on the main objective of a First Aid Kit; make treating wounds easier and faster. However, on my second HMW statement, i wanted to narrow the focus slightly to try to improve my actual product.
Set Up
Participants:
- Blake: Psychology major, Minnesota native, Large family
- Kellee: Architecture major, South Dakota Native, Small nuclear Family
- Isaac: Graphic Design major, South Dakota Native, Small nuclear family
The fourth participant, Lori Jensen, unfortunately, fell ill the morning of and couldnt make it to the session.
Details:
- Location: My Basement, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Meeting Time: 3:00–4:30pm (1.5 hrs)
- Schedule:
— Introduction (10 min)
Explained how the session will play out and the expectations for the group.
— Improv Game 1 (5 min)
Word association popcorn game from class
— Improv Game 2 (5 min)
One person draws a random shape and everybody keeps adding on one shape or characteristic to it until it forms a full picture. However, you cannot tell each other what you drew or see the drawing as, you must take it in your own direction.
— General Brainstorm (10 min)
— Roleplay Brainstorm (10 min: 5x5)
— Negative Brainstorm (10 min: 5x5)
— Brute Think Brainstorm (10 min: 5x5)
— Sort Ideas (10 min)
— Rate Ideas (10 min)
Warm Up
Improv Game 1
Word Association Popcorn Game
— In this game, a participant would begin by saying one random word and point at another participant at random. That person then says the first word that comes to their head when they think about the word that was just said and points to someone else. I let this chain go on for a few minutes until i could see that people were slowing down on things to say.
Improve Game 2
Group Drawing Game
— This game was inspired by the game in which each person says a word to form a sentence. In this game, one person draws a random shape. Then each person takes a turn drawing a shape or item onto the picture. This is continued until a full picture is formed. Whenever you decide the drawing is done is up to you. In our brainstorm session, an orange trapezoid was drawn first and added onto until the picture below was completed.
Brainstorm Session
Introduction:
— I started off the session by putting 2 bags of chocolate candy for everyone to snack on so everybody would get their dopamine levels up. While everyone snacked, I explained how the session would work and what i expected of them.
Warm Up:
— I played 2 warm up games to get their minds flowing. and get them in the right mindset for idea generation
Brainstorm:
— I began by explaining the prompt and giving them 10 minutes to throw out a few general ideas. Then I explained my first HMW statement as well as gave them a new perspective for them. I told them to look at the HMW statement and think of it as if they were a fictional character and gave them 5 minutes on this statement an 5 minutes on the second HMW.
— For the second round, I asked them to think of the worst possible ideas for each of the two HMWs. I gave them 5 minutes of idea generation for each statements.
— The third and final round was a Brute Think session. I gave them the same group of words that we saw in lecture and told them to use the words to form random ideas.
Sorting:
— Once the brainstorming was over, I explained that they should sort all the ideas into any category but without communicating the groups. This resulted in a few notable groups: Technological, “bad” ideas, wearable, real products, and uses light.

— A handful of sketches weren't grouped. they explained the groups and while there was some variance, it was surprisingly consistent in terms of genres of groups.
Voting:
— I explained to them that they should vote on which ideas they thought were the “best ideas”. I referred to “best” as some combination of new, useful, feasible, and creative. In the beginning of the session, i made sure to note the color of marker each participant had so i could keep track of their ideas. I used this for their ratings as well. I had them mark a star on each idea they voted for in order to keep track of who voted for what. I gave each of them 10 votes.
Results:
— Total ideas: 47
— IPM: 0.39 ideas per person per minute
— Top Idea (voting): “Treatment Box”
— Group Favorite (elimination): “Light Exposure Vitamen D”
— Top 10 Ideas (voting):
