Design Thinking: Ideate
The third stage, ideation, is when designers start to visualize their problem solving and generate their ideas on paper. Christoph Niemann, an illustrator for The New Yorker, describes his process of design making. He doesn’t believe there are sparks of inspiration, instead, he goes about his 9-6 workday and hopes for the best. He is shown in the pilot of the Netflix series, Abstract: The Art of Design. In this episode, he takes his audience through his life and how he creates various covers for The New Yorker magazine.
He describes his personality as very controlling which makes working for him a struggle. Design is the opposite of control because designers never know when inspiration will strike. He later describes that loosening up is the key to what makes a good creator. He states, “I found that I need to develop these two personas separately: be a much more ruthless editor and be a much more careless artist.” He also refers to the analogy of design making and athleticism. In order to progress in a sport, one must practice. This is the same for designers. It is not just waiting around for the right kind of inspiration, but practicing in order to develop better skills. He explains how important it is to not worry about the feasibility of certain ideas and how people don’t want to see authenticity. Once you show viewers the real object it can change their view on the abstract you created. Although most of his real-life inspires his designs, he wants people to get lost in the page, so they can relate it to themselves instead of thinking about his experiences. This shows a glimpse as to why previous stages such as empathize are extremely important in the element of design. Niemann wants his audience to feel connected to his work but through their own ways.
Creativity is a crucial aspect of Design Thinking and in the world of designers in general. Stefan Mumaw’s Creative Bootcamp illustrates that creativity is instilled in everyone. He further explains that it isn’t a talent or tied to artistry, but is the ability to problem-solve. He describes the ideas of relevance and novelty: designers actually solving the problem at hand and then taking it a step further by its degree of uniqueness and unpredictability. Creativity is a skill that everyone can practice to get better. A chart can be used to visualize how ideation happens. As time goes on the quality of one’s ideas goes up and then starts to diminish as basic ideas tend to run out. Then there is a moment where, according to Stefan Mumaw, “Somebody says something stupid.” This allows for a whole new set of unique ideas to flow and novelty sparks.
There are exercises one can go through to help spark creativity and showcase this skill. One activity he introduced in his workshop was generating ideas for toys found in cereal boxes during the wild west. After conducting this event he further analyzes that motivation is a key factor in creativity. Motivation is what drives people to come up with as many ideas as they can and have the pivotal switch to novelty. Another activity he generated was the idea of designing the ultimate desk. After people compiled a list of what they thought was an ultimate desk, he said that it was the relevance aspect of problem-solving that made people use the stereotypical envision of a desk and build off of it. It is easiest to build off of already known ideas, however to ideate and come up with something new it is important to start from scratch. According to Stefan Mumaw's website, he has turned this boot camp into a book: Creative Boot Camp: Generate Ideas in Greater Quantity & Quality In 30 Days. He continues to speak at creative industry gatherings and express his love for creative techniques and his need to spread it to all people.
The most important step in the ideation process is to have creative confidence in your ideas and to be able to be proud of what you are trying to solve. According to David Kelley’s TED Talk, people have a fear of judgment and automatically label themselves as noncreative. Similarly to Stefan Mumaw, this is untrue and if one perseveres they can do anything they set their mind to. He provides an example of when he went to visit a psychologist to discuss his theories. Dr. Bandura developed a methodology to help people overcome phobias. He would take them through a series of steps to get them comfortable. He called this process guided mastery because not only did he help them overcome their certain fear but it provided his patients with less anxiety with other things. Kelley wanted to use this psychologist’s process for people who thought they weren’t creative in order to help them build confidence.
Overall, for the ideation stage of Design Thinking, it is essential to be confident with one’s ideas and to be less strict. This will ensure the flow of novelty designs and help with the overall creation that will gain the potential to be used in the next phase, prototyping.