Us Artefactians regularly dabble in new user experiences outside of our daily client work that explore areas such as unfamiliar target audiences, new technologies, new UI mechanisms, or themes that spark our curiosity. As part of our experimentation platform, we recently added a shiny new multitouch display to our toolbox and were quickly inspired to set it up and start experimenting with it. Here’s what we did…
Musical Forest: an experiment in play and discovery
We have been doing a lot of work for a variety of kid age groups, so we decided to explore multitouch solutions for kids ages 3-5 years old for our first experiment with the new display. With this age group in mind, we designed and built a variety of features that helped facilitate “play” and “discovery” as the experience themes, invited kids to play, and asked them what they thought.
The experience
We set out to build a “Musical Forest” that included a variety of single-touch and multi-touch interactions. We wanted to focus on playful colors, sound and simple graphics that enticed our audience to play and discover what it can do.
As a result, we built a few main features:
A fruit tree that wiggled, popped, and enabled you to flick the fruit off of the tree.
Flowers that opened, closed, and encouraged you to “play” their petals like musical instruments
Background trees that allowed you to drag them around and discover the “fruit people” on them
Sound input, that allowed you to make the fruit fall off the trees if you increased the volume of your voice
Our learnings
Kids aren’t afraid to dive in
The kids that we interviewed were not afraid to dive in and start exploring the life-sized display from the get-go. Annet, one of the children we spoke to who is 4 years old, was excited at first glance and began to tap on the screen from the moment she saw it. She quickly started tapping every element that she could see with very limited hesitation.
Young kids don’t rely on multitouch
We originally set out to explore multitouch features such as two finger zoom. However, the kids who used our experiment never even attempted to use multitouch, so they never discovered these features. The only time multitouch was “technically” used was when multiple kids were using the system at the same time. Individually, however, they were interacting with the system using only 1 finger or their hand as a single touch point.
Kids love sound
Sound was used in a variety of ways in the experiment. One of the successes was using playful sounds as interaction feedback along with visual feedback to help the kids discover interactions. For example, when Annet tapped on a fruit element, it made a popping noise. She giggled and “popped” many fruit elements until she discovered that they could be dragged and thrown around.
The experiment also used the kids’ voice as input. The volume of their voices determined the size of the fruit. And, if the kids held their voice at a certain volume for a period of time, it would make all the fruit fall off the tree. This was wildly successful and one of the kids favorite features. In fact, they played with this feature throughout the entire session.
Kids are physical
Kids like to move around and use large physical gestures. During the interview, Annet would periodically stand up, then sit down, then stand up again. She also discovered that when she turned around, she could use her butt to “tap” on items and did this periodically throughout the interview.
Young kids like to learn from other kids
The youngest of the interviewees, Moritz, was 2 ½. At first, he was not as aggressive as the older kids in discovering what the system could do, but was very receptive to learning from them. For example, Annet would show Moritz how to use loud voices to make the fruit fall off the tree and she would show him how to make music with the flower petals. He would mimic her interactions, laugh, and enjoy the reaction. Ultimately, he was more apt to discover new things with Annet by his side showing him the ropes.
This is the last entry in the brainstorming series, and this last phase is possibly the most important of all. For it is what happens after the brainstorming that matters most; taking ideas and tranforming them into strategies that lead to great products and services.
8. Separating the wheat from the chaff
At the end of your brainstorming session, you’ll hopefully have a couple of hundred ideas. But what now? Which of these 200 ideas are worth pursuing? There are a number of different approaches to identify the real contenders. If you have key stakeholders and decision-makers in the room for the brainstorming session, you can leverage that opportunity to whittle down the numbers. A very simple and straight-forward way is to conduct a poll where people vote on the ideas that have the most potential. At Artefact we have used a number of techniques in the past, from colored sticky dots to writing faux investment checks. While relatively straightforward, this approach has some significant drawbacks in that the ideas are being evaluated based on gut instinct and personal bias can sway the results significantly. And if you have a senior executive in the room, you can imagine how that might affect the voting.
Another approach is more systematic in nature and removes much of the personal bias from the process. By creating selection criteria that reflect the business objectives and consider other factors such as feasibility and schedule, you can develop a scoring system. Using this method you score each idea based on how well it maps to the criteria. Those that meet most of the criteria will score well and rise to the top, and those that score poorly will drop off. This is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process and it can be done during the group session or afterwards. But either way, you will have a list that is much smaller and more manageable.
9. After the (brain)Storm
Too often a brainstorming session is an end unto itself and there is no plan in place as to what happens next. A pile of sketches that sit on a desk is of zero value, and without the support of the stakeholders, your ideas are dead on arrival. If you have involved your stakeholders in the process, part of the battle is already won, for the stakeholders will have been a part of the process and they will have a sense of ownership of the ideas.
There is also the temptation to be protective of your output. This is important stuff, after all. But don’t be secretive. In fact, unless there is a specific reason for confidentiality, you want to do the opposite and take steps to get the ideas in front of as many people as possible. The ideas need to have life breathed into them and evangelized to those who matter. Pin up the unfiltered ideas on a hallway, or scan them in and post them on an internal web site.
10. Rinse & Repeat
As you can see, running a brainstorming session well requires a lot of work. The planning and preparing, the session itself, the evangelizing all take an inordinate amount of time. But this should not be a one-off event that happens in isolation. If you do a good job of documenting your process, you can use this as a template for future brainstorming efforts, or it can be shared with your colleagues in other groups. While you don’t want this to become a generic process that delivers a cookie-cutter experience, it is still something that can be repeated. With that in mind, think of it as a system that you develop and improve over time.
This is the second part in a three part series on brainstorming fundamentals.
5. Hey you! Outta the box!
Approaching the task head-on with “give me some new ideas for our next generation of widgets” is going to be met with high anxiety, blank stares and blank pieces of paper. When charged with generating ideas, the task needs to be approached from different angles. Not everyone can naturally think outside the box (Yes, I just said “thinking outside the box”. Deal with it), so they need to be pushed outside the box. This is the key to generating successful output.
There are many, many approaches that will yield a variety of results. However, the purpose of this post is not to provide a comprehensive review of the pros and cons for the various approaches, but rather to highlight the need for the right type of stimulus for the session.
One way to do this is to build a matrix that will force the group to make new connections. The pivots may be themes, trends, contexts, or personas. For example, say you are brainstorming a new mobile application, the table may look something like this:
Theme: Health & well-being
In this case, you would explore the ideas around health + location awareness + the car. The mind can’t help but forge connections, and this is the space where creativity thrives.
In the above matrix, there are nine possible combinations that can be explored. If you have five themes, you now have 45 possible areas to explore. In reality, you would rarely explore every cell in the matrix, but rather pick and choose the ones that hold the most promise. If you brainstorm 10 combinations for five minutes each, you have filled an hour already.
6. Unplug-n-Play
Removing distractions
Another reason to get out of the boardroom is to get people into a different state of mind. That means disconnecting people from their normal responsibilities and all of the associated distractions, such as email, phone calls and the lure of the web. Until recently, this was handled by banning laptops, but with the advent of smart-phones and ubiquitous internet connections, it is harder to capture and hold the attention of your audience. But be prepared with the fall-out as your participants struggle to make it through an hour or two without an email fix. You will likely be met with expressions not unlike the gentleman pictured here.
7. Rules of engagement
With so much effort having gone into the planning of the session, you don’t want to screw it up with some lousy execution. Here are some pretty well established ground rules that will help you run the session effectively.
Stacking the deck“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” Linus Pauling. Brainstorming is a game of odds. No matter how talented your participants and how rich the stimulus, odds are that 90% of your ideas are non-starters for whatever reason. Of the remaining 10%, maybe one or two are going to be worthwhile pursuing. That means you’ll need to generate 100 ideas in the hope of having an idea or two worth taking to the next level. But that’s OK, especially if you only need one great idea. But as a game of odds, you can increase your chances by upping the sheer number of ideas that you generate. If you have ten people in your brainstorming session, and each person offers up one idea every five minutes, that will yield 120 ideas over the course of an hour. Double it if you go for two hours. Buried in there will be a few gems.
Picture this…
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a quick sketch is worth at least a couple hundred. By sketching out ideas you can communicate the concept much more efficiently than by text alone. We usually include a one line description along with a rough sketch. The other benefit is that a sketch provides a visual aid for filtering large amounts of ideas. When these are posted on a wall, they can be easily scanned, parsed, and filtered.
But keep in mind, not everyone feels comfortable putting their artistic skills on display. To ease the anxiety, you can assign a sketch artist (assuming you have access to one) to each of the groups to capture the ideas. This takes the burden off the team members and allows them to focus on the “idea” part of the exercise.
Short is good
As attention spans grow shorter (as indicated by Twitter and the 140 character limit), it becomes tougher to hold an audience for an extended period of time. For the actual brainstorming exercise itself, keep it to 90 minutes or less. Go more than 90 minutes and the fatigue will kick in and creativity and productivity will start to decline.
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours
Often one idea will spark another, and the more ideas you share, the more you will generate. Each new idea will forge a new connection for the next person, and so you can start to build on ideas. So at the end of each round of brainstorming, each person holds up their paper and provides a one-sentence description. If it takes more than one sentence to describe, there’s a good chance the idea is too complex.
That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard
If you want people to clam up or to sulk their way through the session, then go ahead and encourage unbridled criticism of ideas as they are presented to the group. However, if you want to provide an environment that is going to allow for truly creative ideas to flourish, then you need to defer judgment. Because some of those off-the-wall ideas may end up sparking someone else to something truly inspired.
It’s a popular story, partly because of the imagery it conjures up. Greek inventor Archimedes was asked by the king to determine whether a recent gift was made of gold. After taking a bath and observing the water spill over the sides, the answer came to him (the theory of displacement) and he ran naked through the streets shouting “Eureka” (I have found it!). It is a great story that reinforces the role of the epiphany; that there is a magical moment of inspiration (for more on the overstated role of the epiphany check out Scott Berkun’s Myths of Innovation).
Contrast your situation to that of Archimedes, and it goes something like this: You are sitting in a stuffy conference room late on a Thursday afternoon wallowing in a post-lunch coma. You stare at the blank piece of paper before you, blinking and struggling to come up with a cool idea. But it ain’t happening. No “bathtub” moment for you. And judging by the looks on the faces of those around you, it ain’t happening for them either. No one is running down the street naked, that’s for sure.
Sound familiar?
How can you be more like Archimedes and less ….well….creatively constipated?
For brainstorming can’t be that hard, can it? You get a bunch of people in a room, toss in some sharpies and some giant post-it notes and let the creative juices flow. Right?
Wrong.
Too often the very best brainstorming intentions come unglued through poor planning, lousy execution and overall lack of focus. At Artefact, brainstorming is a key part of what we do, and over time we have developed a good sense as to what works and what doesn’t. In this three part series, we’ll go over some basic guidelines to follow when you are charged with conducting a brainstorming session so you can avoid the common downfalls and come up with some killer concepts.
PART 1 (of 3)
1. If I don’t know where I am going, how will I know when I get there?
I still haven't found what I am looking for because I don't know what it is
Clearly define your goals
What, exactly, are you trying to achieve with your brainstorming efforts? It sounds obvious, but too often this question is not given enough thought. Are you defining product strategy or supporting it? What does success look like? How will you know if you have achieved your objective? Spend some time to figure out the answers to these questions before you go any further.
Understand the business objectives
When brainstorming is not aligned with the overarching business objectives, you may as well be sitting at the park and playing in a sandbox, for the result will be the same. The business objectives will provide you with the constraints and the evaluative criteria that are an essential part of the process. Have management articulate the business goals and then establish the link between the brainstorming and the business objectives.
2. Tap into the genius of Dwight
Diversity leads to heterogenus results. Just don't let Dwight derail the session.
Invite the right people
A brainstorm is like a laboratory experiment, and as organizer you get to be the chemist. To ensure that you get the right reactions, you need to mix the right elements together. You will get more diverse ideas from a diverse set of people, so avoid the temptation to fill a room with people just like you. The result is a lot of ideas that are homogenous. Pull people from all parts of the organization, not just the creative side or the management side. Pull in Stanley, Ryan and Pam. Even Dwight. You may be surprised where some of the best ideas come from.
But you need more than a good mix of people. You want your ideas to go forth and prosper. To do that you will want to have your sponsors in the room as well. Your sponsor is the person who is going to believe in your ideas and take them to the next level. And the best way to do that is to foster a sense of ownership of the ideas that are generated, and that is accomplished by have them participate in the process. Fail to do this and at some point your ideas will be met with NIH (Not Invented Here) indifference. So that means inviting Michael Scott, too.
Inviting the right number of people is important too. If you have too few people, say three or four, you won’t get much in the way of volume or diversity. Include too many people (more than ten in a group) and the process becomes unwieldy and the results unfocused. When you have more than ten people, break into groups of five or six with different focus areas.
3. Because beige = bad
Ditch the conference room and get your ass on the grass.
Choose the right location
Some time ago I was at the DMI conference and the speaker posed a question to the audience: “Where were you when had your last great idea? And what were you doing?” As the hands shot up there was a wide array of answers, ranging from “riding my bike” to “in the shower”. Not one person said “in a conference room at work”. Corporate conference rooms are where creativity goes to die. Beige walls, ceiling tiles, fluorescent lights, stale air, and boxed lunches. Brainstorm in a conference room, and your ideas will likely be a reflection of your environment; tired and generic.
One way to promote new ideas is to disrupt the routine and get people into a new environment. That may mean moving to the cafeteria. Or heading outdoors and sitting in a park. Or going mobile and brainstorming on a bus or a ferry.
4. In the News: Brainwave most likely to strike at 10.04pm
Choose the right time
“People are at their most creative late at night with 10.04pm the most likely time for a eureka moment, research has shown. The least creative time in the day is 4.33pm, with 92 per cent of people admitting to feeling uninspired in the afternoon.” (from the Telegraph)
While you may not be able to haul folks into a brainstorm session in the middle of the night, you can certainly avoid the dead zone of late afternoon. I prefer to schedule any brainstorming activity early in the morning right after the coffee has kicked in and before people start thinking about lunch.
by Jennifer Darmour, posted September 4th, 2009
by 
At the end of your brainstorming session, you’ll hopefully have a couple of hundred ideas. But what now? Which of these 200 ideas are worth pursuing? There are a number of different approaches to identify the real contenders. If you have key stakeholders and decision-makers in the room for the brainstorming session, you can leverage that opportunity to whittle down the numbers. A very simple and straight-forward way is to conduct a poll where people vote on the ideas that have the most potential. At Artefact we have used a number of techniques in the past, from colored sticky dots to writing faux investment checks. While relatively straightforward, this approach has some significant drawbacks in that the ideas are being evaluated based on gut instinct and personal bias can sway the results significantly. And if you have a senior executive in the room, you can imagine how that might affect the voting. 
As you can see, running a brainstorming session well requires a lot of work. The planning and preparing, the session itself, the evangelizing all take an inordinate amount of time. But this should not be a one-off event that happens in isolation. If you do a good job of documenting your process, you can use this as a template for future brainstorming efforts, or it can be shared with your colleagues in other groups. While you don’t want this to become a generic process that delivers a cookie-cutter experience, it is still something that can be repeated. With that in mind, think of it as a system that you develop and improve over time.
Another reason to get out of the boardroom is to get people into a different state of mind. That means disconnecting people from their normal responsibilities and all of the associated distractions, such as email, phone calls and the lure of the web. Until recently, this was handled by banning laptops, but with the advent of smart-phones and ubiquitous internet connections, it is harder to capture and hold the attention of your audience. But be prepared with the fall-out as your participants struggle to make it through an hour or two without an email fix. You will likely be met with expressions not unlike the gentleman pictured here.
Brainstorming is a game of odds. No matter how talented your participants and how rich the stimulus, odds are that 90% of your ideas are non-starters for whatever reason. Of the remaining 10%, maybe one or two are going to be worthwhile pursuing. That means you’ll need to generate 100 ideas in the hope of having an idea or two worth taking to the next level. But that’s OK, especially if you only need one great idea. But as a game of odds, you can increase your chances by upping the sheer number of ideas that you generate. If you have ten people in your brainstorming session, and each person offers up one idea every five minutes, that will yield 120 ideas over the course of an hour. Double it if you go for two hours. Buried in there will be a few gems.
But keep in mind, not everyone feels comfortable putting their artistic skills on display. To ease the anxiety, you can assign a sketch artist (assuming you have access to one) to each of the groups to capture the ideas. This takes the burden off the team members and allows them to focus on the “idea” part of the exercise.
