Ideation

- [Instructor] Armed with your research, you should now be able to move into the ideation phase. Begin with creating something like mind maps to distill your thoughts, and then create mood boards to show them physically and work as a reference throughout the ideation phase. Mood boards are a collection of different sources derived from your research and initial ideas that you can add to and refine as you bounce thoughts around. Use the web, use books, use your camera, use fabrics, use anything that you feel is connected to your ideas.

Typically, and in my humble opinion the best way, these are a form of collage on physical boards such as foam core board that you can stick things to easily with glue and will accept pins and so on. If you preferred, you could just as easily use a digital board on a site like Pinterest. And I suppose the advantage there is you don't need to be in the same location to view the boards with your colleagues. The downside would be that you're maybe not exploring other sources effectively and you're robbing yourself of the wonderful tactile experience of sticking loads of inspiration onto boards.

Also, all of that is giving you more time to think and process. How you decide to assemble yours, of course, is entirely up to you. And when I'm working on a product essentially myself, I admit, I use both approaches. But when I've worked in teams, it's been the physical variety almost every time, often taking up a whole wall in the studio as well. When you are visualizing ideas, it's important not to bypass entirely the process of sketching out your ideas and jumping straight into the production software.

This is perhaps a bad idea for a number of reasons, but mostly that your level of expertise may inhibit your creativity. You're thinking more about the operation of software than you are your idea. While that pencil is busy skipping across the page making marks as you're making those roughs, your brain is processing all the time. And this can be sometimes be where you have that aha moment, so don't skip over that particular part of the process. It's a valuable time that should move quickly, be responsive to change or new branches of thought, and really explore the possibilities without over-investing in production technique.

You shouldn't worry too much about the production stages at this time. You'll cross that bridge when you come to it, as it were.