Database Reference
In-Depth Information
4.3 IDEATION
Theproblemofdesignisnotjustthatofspecifyingatechnicalsystem—itisthereinvention
of life, from the most global elements to the most detailed. New technology changes how
people approach their work and how they live their lives; that is why it is attractive. A
Design for Life perspective ensures that those changes are desirable and valued by users.
To do such design successfully, designers need a deep understanding of the life of the
users so that their re-invention of life will be valued. The goal of “disruptive technology”
is to transform life in a desirable direction for people—not to disrupt the ability to get life
done enjoyably! For great designers, immersion in users' lives has always been the trigger
for creative, new invention. The details of life—core motives, life structures, challenges,
issues, problems, desires, and so on—feed design action.
Butthisisonlytrueifthedesignersknowwhattechnologycando.Theyneedtobemas-
ters of the
materials of design
for their domain. User data may provide the inspiration, but
it is the materials of design that are used and recombined to create something transformat-
ive. The materials of design include everything that can be brought to bear on the problem.
Knowledge of apps, responsive design for different screen sizes, appropriate paradigms
for presenting information and functions on different devices, use of location information,
tracking user actions, active learning, machine learning, accessing cloud data to make the
users' data available, UI layouts and graphic design trends—these are just some of the ma-
terials of design necessary for successful products today.
When technology changes—as it did with the introduction of the window/mouse inter-
face, and again with the Web, and again with touchscreens on smartphones—the materials
of design change too. Designers have to re-learn the materials to stay current. As a com-
munity, we also invent new materials and expectations for what is modern. Whereas once
a tree structure UI was innovative, it became dated and old. Whereas users once expected
to fill out forms to tell applications their preferences, today they expect products to figure
out what they want through their actions. Without a thorough grounding in the materials of
design at every level, designers cannot create appropriate products for their markets; they
musthavetheseideasandconceptsattheirfingertipswhiletheyareimmersedintheusers'
world so that they can respond creatively with invention, while building on modern stand-
ards.
Contextual Design supports ideation through two team-based workshops: the
Visioning
Workshop
(3 days) and the C
ool Drilldown Workshop
(3-4 days). Together, they form a
facilitated process for immersing teams in the users' world by walking them through the
consolidated data, generating scenarios exploring how technology can enhance users' life
and work, and driving the implications of the Cool Concepts into the emerging product
concepts. These workshops assume that the participants know their materials—if not, you
