As we near the completion of the ideation process, my group has decided to innovate undergraduate housing through a website or app that connects the modern roommate/housemate with a platform for them to share each other’s class, social and schedules, chore lists, and payment platforms for rent and utilities.
The following is my “Top 4” experiences from the Ideation process.
- Brainstorming came easy for me. I wasn’t ever afraid to throw an idea onto a sticky note because I had the mindset that at this point, every idea is a good one. I felt that the majority of our brainstorm’s volume came from me. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve conducted the same exact brainstorm before (during the Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design course) or if I was just in a creative mood, but I did churn out a lot of sticky notes.
- Some of our pink sticky notes had the potential to be turned into great ideas. From my experience in last year’s pink sticky exercise (during Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design), I was prepared to throw some great pink stickies onto our board. None of ours gained enough traction to be flipped into a pragmatic innovation for our persona, but it was fun to change things up a bit.
- Our team is well versed in iMessage. We weren’t able to meet in person between Thursday and Tuesday’s class periods, but we had to hone in on our project’s final direction. Also, we knew that multi-voting was crucial to choosing the right direction. We conducted our multi-vote and discussion virtually over Apple’s platform, iMessage. To multi-vote, we listed the descriptions of our choices in separate messages. Then, using the “TapBack” feature on iMessage, we “liked” the messages that our votes counted for. Because we had 4 ideas, each person had 2 votes. It was a well-executed strategy that let us focus on work we had to do in other classes since we didn’t have to meet in person. It worked perfectly!!
- The final thing I gathered from completing the ideation process was the assuredness that my team has a great grasp on where we’re taking our project. From the define phase and into the ideate phase, I’d grown anxious that our personas lived in a world that left us very little room to innovate. It took a good amount of collaboration, brain power, and effort to finalize our topic. However, we successfully settled on a great and innovative concept. In all, the Ideation process calmed my nerves and I’m confident that we’ve made the right decisions.