An example of Idea Generation focusing only on FUNCTIONALITY.Introduction
Finally we come to the idea generation stage of your design journey. You might have noticed the number and the variety of posts and topics that goes before the ideas generation stage. The reason for that is not a casual one - as understanding your design situation and establishing a genuine need is probably the most important step in the design process. Once you have established that firmly and you know you have identified a solid design opportunity, your design brief, considerations and specifications will come in naturally as a by-product of your hard work.
The rest of the journey may not be any simpler (it will continue to demand your effort for quality work), but you can be assured you will have a project that is worth spending the next few weeks and months working on and developing into a working prototype.
Idea Generation: Common (Grave) Mistakes
Mistake #1: Lack of process recording (that includes research recording)
One of the gravest mistake many students make at the idea generation stage is the lack of recording of the thinking and exploration process that is going on in their head all along. The examiner or the reader could not appreciate your struggle, he could not understand how an idea or concept is conceived. It may be a very good idea, but information on how you got there is missing. As a result, the student stand to loose credibility in his journal and sadly lost of marks in the section of 'research' and 'communication'.
Mistake #2: Sketching a complete drawing without illustrating the journey to get there
You will find examples of very complicated single drawings of a product with lots of features in it that seem to be too quick too soon as a first idea. What usually happened is this - the student could have pondered and worked out various issues on functionality and aesthetics, borrowed some ideas of traditional working examples and perhaps combined a few features here and there - and then proceed to sketch one, two or three (or ten) 'independent' proposals after some time. And you say 'I now have THREE (or TEN) ideas'. But few or in some cases non of them is a continuation of the other and the development process of 'one idea to another' is nowhere to be felt. How the idea or concept forms and develops from one to the other is not shown.
Mistake #3: Drawing the first (or the first few) ideas and think that is final.
Any one who has the experience of exploring ideas to achieve quality conclusion knows that the first few ideas hardly works. Of course there will be exceptions where the designer may go back to the first few ideas after exploration and development on the latter concepts - however that 'first' idea will still need to go through various rounds of refinement before it can be considered to be prototyped. Any idea or a concept (as a whole or singled out as individual parts to work on) will need to be further explored, taken apart and put back, modified, evolved, researched, investigated, modeled, tested, evaluated and improved before it will come alive as a solution.
Mistake #4: Stopping at a single view
There is no way a design proposal can be fully explored and refined relying on just one view/side of the proposed idea. At times only the side or front view is drawn and that one drawing is used for critique and evaluation of its effectiveness and functionality, etc. If that idea is found not ideal, it is usually immediately abandoned and another brand new often unrelated idea appears. (see mistake #3)
Mistake #5: Stuck and Brain Choked - no ideas.
This doesn't sound like a mistake, does it? But this is another very common problem for the majority of students. 'I have no idea' and 'I cannot think of any ideas', he or she would exclaim at the idea generation stage. This is a mistake of not understanding the pre-requisite of what comes before idea generation.
For every Problem there will be Solutions
Solution for Mistake #1The design journal is a record of your thinking process. What you think is what you will record. It can be a question that you asked yourself in your head - write the question down, sketch the question if you may then go find the answers (and record them). It could be a sudden idea that struck you - draw your mental visual image from your mind on paper, write notes if you can't draw, then go refine and develop that idea further using a variety of drawing techniques.
Recording can be various forms through photographs, images, annotations, conclusions, etc - at no point in time should your design journey be treated like an answer script of answers and decisions. Recording through drawings should be done in as many perspectives and drawing techniques as possible (see image above)
Solution for Mistake #2 & #3
Focus on the broad concept at the beginning of the ideation stage. That could be exploration of a certain functional specifications - one at a time and then combining them later to evaluate the proposal as a whole. That will minimize the mistake of dwelling too much into unnecessary details that is not the time yet to be considering. For example: Why worry about the appearance of the product if you have not worked out how it it will do its job in an innovative way (or in a fun way, in a humorous way, in a cool way or whatever your focus is for that particular functional requirement)?
Many students wander too much into drawing a complete product in the first attempt and missed the important step of coming up with a great concept that is usually achieved at the initial stage of ideation where you play with broad ideas and propose various alternatives - all of which does not require detailed drawings that goes into styling and the bolts and nuts of the product. A chosen concept is then refined and developed, and that is where details starts coming in. When you do so, you will know you have arrived at the development stage of your design phase.
Solution for Mistake #4
Study the sample Idea Generation image above. I only have one objective. And that objective is to hold a piece of paper. The objective of holding a piece of paper is one of my functional specification. I also have a supplementary specification - that is I want to come out interesting alternatives to hold a piece of paper (note) that will make the storing of the paper fun and interactive. You may be interested to note that I have another requirement - the product must be made with only ONE piece of material...
