IDEA GENERATION 2

Michael Thao
Nov 7 · 4 min read
Adam and Justin’s dog

HMW

How might we make a kettle more personal?

(broader question for an electric kettle)

How might we heat up water faster?

(the purpose)

Set Up

I had invited 4 people to do the idea generation with me. They are:

Chia — Friend, a photographer and works at school

Adam — Friend, Swims competitively

Justin — 14-years-old, Adam’s younger brother, plays Fortnite (A LOT)

Calvin — FLAKED OUT

I decided to hold my meeting at Adam’s house because we were going to hang out. To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to change the location of what we were doing (that may be why Calvin flaked out on us).

The materials used to generate ideas were:

  • Post-It Notes
  • Pens

Warm Up

We played three games to warm up. Each game was about 3 minutes and they were:

Loser Ball — Throw an imaginary ball and dodge it/don’t catch it. When the person “drops” the ball, everyone must cheer and support the person for doing so.

Zip-Zap — Get in a circle. Point your hands and say, “Zip!” The person that receives the “Zip” must point at someone else and say, “Zap!” Repeat and try to go fast.

bLaP! bLaP! — A game in which you point a fingers in a gun shape or make your own imaginary gun and make gun noises. However, no one may repeat the same gun noises and it must be the same two recurring noises. Example, blap! blap!, blip! blip!, pah! pah!, etc.

Brainstorm Session

Lickey Censorship :)

Overall, we got about 70 ideas and some scrapped post-it notes. Some were scrapped due to Justin not being able to like his idea, and repeats. After coming up with the ideas, we put them into groups. When we sort them, we did talk instead of being quiet.

They were grouped in the following categories:

  • Practical
  • Audio
  • Electronic
  • Temperature
  • Novelty

Afterwards, I had everyone use their pens and mark an “X” on post-its with the best idea. I marked Xs instead of using the sticker dots because that would cover a huge portion of the post-it notes.

Top 10 Ideas

Speaker Kettle (Chia, 4 Votes) [Audio]

Sword Kettle (Me, 3 Votes) [Novelty]

Googly Eye Kettle (Me, 3 Votes) [Novelty]

LEGO Kettle (Me, 3 Votes) [Novelty]

Glow Up Blue Kettle (Adam, 3 Votes) [Novelty]

Instant Heat Up Pill (Me/Adam, 3 Votes) [Temperature]

Drug Kettle (Justin, 3 Votes) [Practical]

Detachable Kettle (Chia, 2 Votes) [Practical]

Roomba Kettle (Chia, 2 Votes) [Electronic]

Remote Control Kettle (Me, 2 Votes) [Practical]

HMW — 10/31

SET UP — 11/2

WARM UP — 11/2

BRAINSTORM — 11/2

10 IDEAS — 11/4–11/5

UPLOAD ON MEDIUM — 11/6

Michael Thao

Written by

Daydreaming

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