Generating ideas / Brainstorming / HCI theories

After Mondays lecture, Russell discussed methods of generating ideas for our project. These involved:

–Brainstorming
–Lateral thinking
–Future envisaging
–Impossible combinations
–Inspiration tray

From this, we have decided to use brainstorming, due to its simplicity and our past experience in using this method. In further researching brainstorming, we discovered the following guidelines: -

(Source: MindTools.com, http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html)

• Define the problem you want solved clearly, and lay out any criteria to be met;
  
  
• Keep the session focused on the problem;
  
  
• Ensure that no one criticizes or evaluates ideas during the session. Criticism introduces an element of risk for group members when putting forward an idea. This stifles creativity and cripples the free running nature of a good brainstorming session;
  
  
• Encourage an enthusiastic, uncritical attitude among members of the group. Try to get everyone to contribute and develop ideas, including the quietest members of the group;
  
  
• Let people have fun brainstorming. Encourage them to come up with as many ideas as possible, from solidly practical ones to wildly impractical ones. Welcome creativity;
  
  
• Ensure that no train of thought is followed for too long;
  
  
• Encourage people to develop other people's ideas, or to use other ideas to create new ones ; and
  
  
• Appoint one person to note down ideas that come out of the session. A good way of doing this is to use a flip chart. This should be studied and evaluated after the session.
  

In following through the brainstorming session, we will follow the guidelines above when going through our brainstorming sessions.

During our initial stages of our project, we will follow an individual brainstorming pattern so all members of the group can put forward some of their own ideas. We will then, during our group brainstorming sessions, analyze some persona's from our target audience and match them to see which one of our ideas best meets their criteria.

This part of the process is extremely important as the feedback gained from the personas will ultimately decide on the end product that we choose. In the worst case scenario, we may discover that none of our ideas match any of the personas criteria and this may mean we will have to conduct the brainstorming session again. We are prepared for this eventuality if it arises.