Interface design 101: Coming up with ideas
It’s the starting point of every design process: The development of ideas, also referred to as ideation.
First lesson: “Keep calm and trust the process.” This is important because stress kills creative thinking. But before we look into the steps that make up the process, let’s take a look at why we even need to care.
The problem with linear thinking
Giving space to the creation of ideas is critical for guiding the development of an interface. Without guidance, the design is set up to fail. We might end up building something that doesn’t address a need, or that addresses the wrong needs for the wrong user group. Skipping the ideation step, means that those mistakes might only be identified when testing first versions of the interface with prospective users, or worse, when releasing the product into the market.
Giving space to ideation ensures that we are on the right track before starting to think about the details. More than that, it is critical to explore many ideas before settling on the one idea that is taken into the next step of the design process.
While a straight line might be the most efficient way to get from one point to another, it is far from being the most effective approach for solving a design problem. There is an important distinction between efficiency and effectiveness here. In other words, arriving at a solution in the fastest possible way doesn’t resolve in a solution that will address the problem in the best possible way.
The more effective way to identify a solution to a problem is to think iteratively. Ideation, like all human-centred design, is an iterative process. The more iterations we are able to do, the better the quality of the identified ideas.
The need for many ideas
The first idea, is rarely the best idea. It is in fact dangerous to get attached to an idea early. Sometimes, we need to “kill our darlings” to make room for better ideas to emerge.
“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” —Linus Pauling
I often ask my design students to submit at least three ideas to force them to think beyond their first idea. Of course, this shouldn’t be interpreted literally, as if three was the magic number. Sometimes I get my students to come up with several ideas on their own first, before putting them into project teams, at which stage they need to combine and negotiate their collective ideas. This can lead to much grief, but challenges our students to develop critical skills for their future careers as designers.
The important lessons of this exercise are:
- Combining ideas allows drawing on a bigger pool of ideas, eventually leading to a higher-quality solution;
- Negotiating ideas in a team requires the assessment of ideas and their quality in terms of how well they address the design problem;
- Letting go of ideas creates room for better ideas to emerge;
- Visualising ideas is an important part of ideation as it supports the sharing of ideas with team members.
Every now and then, I have students in my class, who are not willing to let go of their ideas when forming a team with others. This usually results in the team working on two or more solutions simultaneously. Although, in some cases they attempt to make both solutions fit under an overarching application, their final submission usually fails to present a well-developed response to the given design brief. Moreover, the attempt to combine multiple solutions into one application leads to featuritis, diluting the purpose of the application and impeding the usability of the product.
Ideation and innovation
Coming up with many ideas is also critical if one of the goals is to find an original solution. This may not be necessary in every design context. For example, in architecture it might be perfectly fine to implement a solution that is known to work in a particular situation. It is goodness that is critical, rather than novelty.
Similarly, certain aspects in interface design are more successful in their implementation, if they don’t reinvent the wheel. This is particularly the case when designing features that are commonly found in similar products. For example, the metaphor of the shopping basket is well-known and familiar to users. Changing this to a new metaphor, might negatively affect the usability of the interface. This is were design patterns are useful.
“You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.” — Edward de Bono
However, if the aim is to create a new product within an existing landscape, being different can bring a competitive advantage. Novelty is a critical factor to success. The process of ideation can help to identify solutions that are innovative. The more ideas developed, the more likely it is to find a novel solution.
The difference between ideas and solutions
I have been using both terms, ideas and solutions. What’s the difference? Ideas are high-level, ‘big picture’, and often abstract. When coming up with and visualising ideas, we focus on the people and the context, not the details. It is important not to focus on the details, as it is easy to get lost in discussions over the colour, placement, shape and form of interface details. These details can be worked out at a later stage through wireframes and by developing the information architecture and visual design of the interface.
A solution is the synthesised form of ideas. To identify a solution, we need to assess and sometimes combine ideas. A solution is the idea that is taken into the next step. In the spirit of iteration, the solution should be a refined version of an idea or a combination of ideas. Depending on the context, it may also be useful to add more details to the solution, for example by choosing a different visualisation technique.
The link between research and ideas
Ideas don’t emerge from nowhere. If coming up with ideas feels hard, it’s usually a sign of a lack of background research. The more thorough the research, the better the ideas.
Background research can include primary research as well as secondary research. The best approach is to combine both, but if time is an issue, then secondary research is usually more effective. This involves collating existing research, which includes academic articles, studies carried out by market research organisations, and case study reports.
If time is an issue, a useful primary research method for quickly gaining some first-hand insights into a user group is the use of online ethnography. This involves collating and analysing comments posted by the target audience on publicly accessible online platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, news articles, user forums, etc.
Critically, ideas should be based on findings from this research. The research might identify a gap in the market, a particular shortcoming of current solutions, or unaddressed needs of users. Ideas are usually not a one-to-one translation of findings into ideas, and there is no direct correlation between the number of problems found and the number of ideas. In other words, finding three problems doesn’t result in three solutions. Ideas are based on a holistic consideration of all the findings.
If time permits, it can be useful to apply ideation techniques that involve both analysis of the research data and their synthesis into ideas, such as affinity diagramming.
Ideation doesn’t end with a solution
All steps of a design process are connected. Each following step needs to consider and build on the discoveries made in the previous step(s).
Often my students worry about locking themselves in by submitting a particular solution in their first assignment. The reality however is, that solutions will continue to evolve. In fact, the best designs are usually the ones that keep being broken and refined along the way.
New ideas might emerge from feedback on the initially identified solution, from thinking through the details of the solution, e.g. by moving to sketching wireframes, and by gathering early feedback from prospective users. Sources of new ideas along the way are therefore the use of various techniques, other team members, and your users.
Summary
Although interface design as a field is concerned with the design of interface elements, such as input fields, buttons, menu items, etc., and their placement on the screen, any interface design project needs to start with ideation — unless someone else has already carried out this step and is providing the findings in the form of design artefacts, such as storyboards, personas and user journeys.
Identifying ideas and synthesising those ideas into a solution is an important step to provide guidance for the design of interfaces. Ideas should always be grounded in findings from research. Coming up with ideas therefore requires both creative and analytic thinking.
When developing ideas, it is important to come up with as many ideas as possible, and — if there is time — to iteratively refine the ideas. This can be achieved by using a variation of ideation methods, evaluating ideas in the design team, and testing ideas with prospective users.
The use of visualisation techniques, such as storyboards and scenarios, facilitates the communication of ideas within a team and to prospective users, and to iteratively refine and develop ideas in more detail. We will cover visualisation techniques in the next article.
Why I’m writing this: I have been teaching interface design at various universities for 13 years. In some years, I taught entire courses focusing on interface design, in others I taught aspects of interface design as part of larger design studios, focusing on broader areas such as interaction design or user experience design. There is a difference between interface design and those other fields. I decided to focus on interface design here for two reasons: First, there is a lot of ground to cover even just by focusing on one of those fields. Choosing to only write about interface design, allows me to get into the specifics. Second, I am coordinating an interface design course at the University of Sydney this semester (taught by Aaron Bonham from Code Monastery), which is part of our Master of Interaction Design & Electronic Arts. The course is larger than ever before (indicating the popularity of digital design as well as the need for designers in the industry), resulting in more questions from students than ever before. I will use those questions to structure my articles, thus hopefully addressing the most common questions that people new to the field might have.
