Saara's posterous

Digging into the history of brainstorming

This is too cool not to share. Did you know that Alex Faickney Osborn coined "brainstorming" in his book "How to Think Up" published in 1942? Now you know...

Why am I sharing this? Lets rewind shall we:

I recently lead an ideation session at work using this method we've been calling (erm, I've been calling) "focused brainstorming". It's a method I picked up when I was a participant at an ideation session years ago that was lead by some fine folks from Red Scout, and have since adopted and used in ideation sessions with my coworker Pete. 

As coincidence would have it, we ended up leading two different ideation design jams on the same day. It's been great being able to compare notes both in prepation and post-ideation, while also bringing in more of our design co-workers to help co-lead these sessions. 

Saarawithideationboard

So there I was, writing up my report about how my ideation session went, when Josh (fellow MHCI alum and interaction designer) goes "Hey, isn't there a better name for what we call these design jams? And, isn't focused brainstorming already the name of a different method?" 

Now, this question is why I'm still at work an hour later.

My Google search served up a Word document, from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center no less, that contains this description:

Focused Brainstorming -  Osborn-Parnes technique 

Description of the Tool:  Focused brainstorming is used when you need focused idea generation and selection that take you from your objective to your solution and on to your implementation plan.  This technique generates three times the idea participation as traditional brainstorming.

Idea generation (divergent thinking) --- quality is equal to quantity

Rapid-fire ideas are generated with each participant equipped with pen and pad of post-it notes.  As an idea pops-up, they write it down (subject and verb form), holler it out for all to hear and the facilitator places it on a flip chart.  Piggy-back ideas, realistic ideas, crazy ides, funs ideas all count.

Idea selection (convergent thinking)--- select and reform the best

After a time limit or you have exhausted the ideas, then clusters and reform the notes to select the best idea to work on.  You may need to time box this.  

Toggle between generating ideas and selecting the best of the ideas 

Repeat this procedure for the applicable “finding” steps.  The Problem-finding step is the most critical – a well-defined problem is half solved.  To get from concept (objective-finding) to action plan (acceptance-finding) it can take up to 60 minutes. 

via Focused Brainstorming Word Document

I'm reading this description and thinking that this totally is the same underlying methodology to the "half-sheet" "full-sheet" methodolgy we've been using to think up a bunch of ideas (the "half-sheets" = divergent thinking), then sorting them, voting with dots, choosing a handful to refine further (the "full-sheets" = convergent thinking), and repeating with another focus area. As user experience designers, we take the ideas that come out of an ideation session to the next step by creating storyboards. 

The next question of course was: what is the Osborn-Parnes technique? Wikipedia provided that answer:

The Creative Problem Solving Process (CPS), also known as the Osborn-Parnes CPS process, was developed by Alex Osborn and Dr. Sidney J. Parnes in the 1950s.[1] CPS is a structured method for generating novel and useful solutions to problems. CPS follows three process stages, which match a person's natural creative process, and six explicit steps:[2]

via Creative Problem Solving Process - Wikipedia

Click on through to Alex Osborn's Wikipedia page and you'll find out that not only did he name brainstorming, but he was a creativity theoirist. I feel so excited to realize that the methods we're using, very successfully for that matter, have this history that goes back to the 50's.

That's old school, and that rocks!

lack of posterous posts

I have had a severe lack of posterous posts due to a weird bug: I can't access the posterous site from work. This means the really awesome bookmarklet features does not work, and I can't see anyone else's posterous site as well. It's a big bummer and I haven't been able to figure out why I get a "500 Internal Service Error" when trying to access it from behind the work firewall (no one else at work seems to have the same problem). 

Anyone out there have any idea how to fix this?

Design as Communication

To elaborate, the communication is initiated by the designer; he must first envision and construct a conceptual model of how the system functions and how it is likely to be used. If the designer is aware and perceptive he will consider the potential users of the system (archetypical users) and the context of usage (scenarios of how the system will be used by the users). This approach can lead him to identify the user requirements more accurately, helping him to interpret the users’ problems and to precisely define the “problem space”.


The designer must somehow be present in the interface, at the point of interaction, to tell the user how to use the signs that make up a system. The designer does this by mapping his conceptual model of the system onto a physical artefact. The designer’s conceptual model will be projected to the user at the point of interaction with the artefact. In a software system the designer might create a graphic user interface GUI which will allow him to map his conceptual model.

via di8it.com

Fascinating. Go read the whole article. Can I now say that I design conversations?

How to Write a Mission Statement That Isn't Dumb | Fast Company

The phrase "big hairy audacious goal" (or BHAG) was first proposed by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1994 book Built to Last. They say a BHAG is "clear and compelling and serves as a unifying focal point of effort, often creating immense team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal .... A BHAG should not be a sure bet ... but the organization must believe 'we can do it anyway.' "

Microsoft came up with probably the most well-known BHAG, "A computer on every desk and in every home, all running Microsoft software." Amazon has a great one for its Kindle, too: "Every book ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds."

Both statements do something crucial: They quantify the goal. Microsoft doesn't just want to sell software -- it wants its software on every computer, in every home. Amazon doesn't just want you to buy a book; it wants to help you do so in under one minute.

Most companies aren't so successful at laying out their goals (or, obviously, at execution). And in my experience, not-for-profits are especially awful at creating BHAGs with clear targets, preferring warm, fuzzy words that have all the gloss of inspiration and none of the soul and drive of the real thing.

via fastcompany.com

Agreed agreed agreed - it's like having the right focus statement for a particular project. Which wow, I've just realized I haven't been doing recently - can you do that partway through a project?

We did these all the time in grad school in the beginning of a project, usually after some initial affinity diagram exercise. For example, this was our statement back in March 2007 for a Microsoft Design Challenge regarding health and wellness:

"We aim to empower short term patients during the entire length of their hospital stay−from the minute they walk in to a hospital, to the minute they return home. We want to address the issues of communication, activities, relationships, trust & privacy between patients and practitioners. By exploring problems in these areas we hope to find an opportunity to deliver a service that will enhance their experience while at the hospital."

Sure, a little long winded and we did edit it to be shorter by the final presentation, but it hits upon specific focii and not just warm and fuzzies. Also important - the whole team wrote it together and agreed this was our focus. There are so many things you could focus onto make better experiences in health and wellness, that it was important to know which part of the opportunity space we were looking at. So true for any project.

“Use all knowledge from contemporary user experience design and translate it to paper.”

Media_httpfarm3staticflickrcom26733967849075fed1ab72a9jpg_liwmaacqdavhveb
via informationarchitects.jp

Great read on applying user experience to print - great to see that others are also exploring this realm. As my friend Ben put it, "I have been thinking a lot about usability for print and am excited to add this to my library." I indeed hope more designers add some print experience into their toolbox. There's a lot that can be enhanced in terms of total user user experience by adding a great, useful, usable print user experience/interaction.