Blockbusting
In Conceptual Blockbusting, James Adams talks about perceptual blocks to problem solving and creativity. Naming these blocks makes it easier to reexamine your approaches and generate new ways to solve problems. Below is a list of the perceptual blocks and a brief description of each:
- stereotypes: a belief you hold based on a narrow piece of information, or seeing what you expect.
- trouble isolating the problem: sometimes we know there is a problem, but don’t know exactly what it is, if you are unable to isolate the problem, you will have a difficult solving it.
- delimiting the problem space: is the scope too narrow or too wide? what is the right focus? making sure you do not narrow in on one idea too quickly.
- inability to see different perspectives: look at the problem from different types of users’ perspective.
- utilizing sensory inputs: are all senses engage? If not, how could you engage other senses?
In class we were given a prompt of coming up with a way to help a local museum generate interest and increase attendance among college students. Our initial ideas focused soley on looking at the problem from the student’s perspective. We also had a lot of assumptions about what students would want from a museum and how they would choose to spend their time. After thinking about the perceptual blocks and trying to look at the problem differently, our group was able to generate more ideas and think of an old problem in a new way.
