Ideation

What did I do?

I drew 10 sketches based on the idea of eating. My first ten sketches were 10 different ideas I had when I thought about eating. Then I picked one of those ideas (food storage) to draw 10 more sketches about. Theses sketches were 10 different ideas about how to store food, taking into account things like reheating, food going bad, and the amount of effort it takes to store food. Then I picked the most promising idea, a container that syncs with your phone so you get notifications about when the food is going bad. You can view all my sketches here.

My Reflection

I had trouble breaking out of the boundaries of what I know as functional. Thinking outside the box and then sketching it was a challenge and what I did to combat it was set constraints on myself. I thought what could we do if cost and efficiency wasn’t an issue? That led to a couple robot ideas. I also tried to think about what kind of eating I do in my life. This raised the question of if that is where I should be focusing on at all, because that kind of thinking doesn’t give me a broader or more informed scope of ideas. It would definitely have been helpful to have a team.

What environment did I surround myself with? How did my choice of environment influence what happened during my ideation?

My environment for this activity was Mary Gates main floor. I listened to Ghost’s new album and it provided some nice background music. I also was eating lunch while idea-ing about eating, which I think focused my thinking more. Unfortunately it also made me hungrier, which didn’t help the ideas flow. There were other people eating lunch too, and I used them for inspiration as well. I checked my phone occasionally during the process which also broke focus, but in the end I felt like the general atmosphere of Mary Gates pushed me to be more creative.

How is this relative to society?

Sketching like this is a crucial part of the design process. It’s akin to the brainstorming process in that you have to explore lots of ideas really quickly in order to filter down to ideas that have potential. You cast aside judgment because you can never know where a great idea will come from. Sketching is particularly important in communicating ideas to team mates. You can probably talk through a design for a rocket ship but then you’ll have no reference and might have trouble revising the idea later. If you sketch it out you can always refer back to it, and your team can more quickly understand it. In society this work is important in designing anything, especially if it is meant for those with disabilities. Going through the ideation process is a key way to make products for society that will work for everyone.