Then take this short list and move onto the next step: sketching. That excitement will shine through your design and make it more attractive to customers! ideas and inspirations that not only will fulfill your users' needs, but ones that you are most stoked about. So make a summary list of the best ideas generated via your brainstorming, i.e. While designing a product that is ultimately intended for others to use requires stepping outside your own biases and desires – i.e.: huge doses of empathy – I think it's important that you are also excited about what you're making. This is where you must rely on your intuition and interest. Now that you've done all that work, what are you supposed to do with the results of your brainular storming? Sometimes new information or ideas come from places/times/perspectives you would never have imagined on your own (or as yourself!). Then dive into sillier ones that will change your perspective, like for me: What would Rhianna do? What would Prince do? What would 1982 do? What would an elephant do? To warm up, start with the basic questions: who, what, why, where, when. going straight to looking for obvious answers. This brainstorming technique focuses on asking unusual questions vs. There, I have three ideas to add to my 'ideas to explore' list! It's ok to use words instead! It's the ideas generated by new combinations of the elements that is the important thing, not how you get there. NOTE: You don't have to draw the ingredients out like I did. By doing this you end up with combinations (flavors) that you never would have thought of otherwise! The idea is that you break your design challenge down into its smallest parts (like ingredients in a recipe) before you reassemble them in new ways (new dishes). In her book, Design The Life You Love, Ayse Birsel introduces a design technique she calls Deconstruction: Reconstruction. Technique No.2: Break It Down, Build It Up Do something outside of your norm to grease the wheels of your imagination.

So if you find you're feeling blocked and the ideas aren't flowing, I encourage you to go to a big white board and write bigger, or try and write as tiny as you can on a piece of paper – or use post it notes and connect them with string. I think the freer and looser you are, the less constrained your thinking will be, and the more likely it is that you'll land on a fresh idea. You'll notice that I'm not concerned with perfect writing or line making.

Rapid sketch complete a rectangle