Imaging 1

Creative Thinking

              Creative thinking is a vital part of the design process.  Good ideas don’t just appear the instant we are given a problem, but through a critical thinking process, which gets better over time. Graham Wallace, the author of The Art of Thought, said that the creative process had four stages to it. They are, Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. First, we’ll examine Preparation.

              The preparation stage is all about defining and closely inspecting your problem to get a better understanding of it. Try to obtain any information regarding the problem and try to examine it from all angles and point of views to learn as much about it as you can. You should try to fully immerse yourself in the situation so there won’t be any misunderstandings in your knowledge of the situation so that your solution will be the best answer to the problem. After we have gained a full understanding of the problem, we move on to the incubation stage.

              The incubation stage is basically when you take a step back from the problem and begin to let your mind process all the information you took in in the preparation stage. This is the time that creative thinking really is in action.  This is when we stop thinking about the problem and let our minds wander. When our subconscious takes over, we begin to form solutions, and as our minds continue to wander, we find even more, and better solutions. Sometimes they’ll come to us in times when we shut or minds off from the problem completely. We can try this approach by taking a walk or occupying our minds with other activities. This stage of incubation comes to an end when we reach the next stage, illumination.

              The illumination stage is when all your wandering mind’s work pays off. This is the moment you find the solution to your problem. It feels as if everything makes sense again, and you’ve been given some sort of insight or knowledge that was previously unknown. It can be a very rewarding moment. The illumination stage is a pretty quick and short stage, where you’ll want to get this new great idea on paper as soon as possible so you won’t forget it. It leads to the next stage, verification. This is when you take your great new idea and evaluate it for any weaknesses and test it to see if it will work. After all of this testing, you may find that your idea will not actually work, so in this case you would unfortunately have to start the process over from the beginning. However, if it only needs to be slightly modified, or needs no changes at all, you are finished with the process, and have made yourself a great new idea.

              Now after the process, with a new, creative idea, we can appreciate the fact that creativity is not something that people are born with, but more of a skill that is developed over time. It involves a great deal of work, planning, and critical thinking. With the understanding of the four step process of creative thinking, we can become aware of how our ideas are made, and try to work our mind and use some strategies to create more creative ideas.

Sources:

    Human-centered design focuses on what people need, the context they live in, and finding a solution that satisfies the people. Human centered design is a process that is not linear and may feel more like madness rather than an actual progressive method to finding a suitable solution. This type of design has multiple different solutions but each and every one has its pros and cons; a community might be happier with one more than the other. Human centered designers focus find a problem and look for multiple different ways and angles to solve a problem in hand. They gather ideas from other problem solvers, people who are exposed to these problems, and people witness these problems. The people who give the best feedback are the ones who experience these problems first hand. Asking questions creates deep empathy with communities and individuals, making the feedback genuine and reliable for the designers. The steps that designer goes through are inspiration, ideation, and implantation; these steps are unavoidable to execute a design that serves its purpose.

    When looking for inspiration a designer should ask many questions to the target audience. They should also try and to witness or experience the problems first hand for the best ideas, to solve these problems they strive to design for. Working together with others is key to progressing to the best solution possible; an individual may be able to solve a problem themselves, but with a team with the same goal set in mind the process becomes quicker and more ideas from different mental perspectives arise.

    Every idea is valuable; one idea might lead to another. Testing out every idea given is very helpful because the craziest idea might be the best and another might be too complicated for the audience. That isn’t to say every idea is the best idea but rather a stepping stool for others. Sharing your ideas with a team is very helpful; finding a solution shouldn’t be done alone, nor is it easy. The idea isn’t to steal solutions from one another but rebound off what they have or supporting them in their progress.

    The designer should ask for feedback of the product created after it is tested and shown to others. The designer should redesign the product; solving problems the prior outcome had. According to The Field to Human Centered Design failure is an incredibly powerful for learning. The problems that arise from the solution that was tested are seen road blocks but creating something beautiful shouldn’t be easy; Rome wasn’t built in a day. Humans are always progressing, the world around us changes, and people’s views of the world they live in change too; the solution that work now may not work in the future. When something is produced, we live with it then over time we learn from it, and later we can produce something more creative. There is never a perfect product, anything and everything can be better than how it is, but is practically impossible to achieve without recognizing all the feedback that the designer has received.

Cited sources:

IDEO. “The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design.” IDEO.org, bestgraz.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Field-Guide-to-Human-Centered-Design_IDEOorg.pdf.

     In today’s society, art and design are scattered all throughout the world, making it nearly impossible to escape the sight of it. In fact, we view upwards of 4,000 advertisements on average each day. Advertisements, logos, posters, packaging, and much more are all responsibilities of graphic designers. Of the different types of design, human-centered design is the type that most intrigues me due to how much it influences our behavior.

     Human-centered design is quite unique compared to creative thinking and design thinking. It is a “framework that considers human perspectives throughout the design process” (prototypr.io). These designers carefully study human behavior and interaction in order to understand human nature. This understanding of human nature gives the designers insight on how to make their products efficient and effective for their clients and customers to use. When I think of how products are made to fit the needs of others, I think of it almost as a science. We have to learn what people like and do not like, what their habits are, and how this product will affect their lives.

     Like any form of art and creativity, there is a process that designers must follow in order to achieve their desired product. Within the human-centered design process, there are three main steps: inspiration, ideation, and implementation (IDEO, 11). With inspiration, the designer(s) develop a better understanding of people; they study behavior, desire, and people’s daily lives. Next, we move into ideation, in which we generate innumerable ideas and designs, and test which work the best. Lastly, in the implementation stage, we “figure out how to get [our] idea to market and how to maximize its impact in the world” (IDEO, 11).

     Failure: everyone experiences it, and it is possibly the most crucial step when creating art and designs. Human-centered designers are very much like inventors: they “tinker and test, [they] fail early and often, and [they] spend a surprising amount of time not knowing the answer to the challenge at hand. And yet, [they] forge ahead” (IDEO, 10). Much like inventors, designers experience a significant amount of failure. Without failure, we would not be able to make improvements to our work. More importantly, we would not be able to learn new techniques and methods to help with other projects. With this gained knowledge from failure, we are able to effectively refine our designs to better fit the needs of our clients.

     Human-centered design is vastly unique compared to design thinking and creative thinking due to how much time goes into research and the development of a product catered to human action and behavior. Going through the design process and following the steps of inspiration, ideation, and implementation allows designers to gather adequate information about their target audience and test their theories out with others before the final product is released in the market. During this testing phase, failure makes itself known, allowing for us to correct our errors and to learn from our mistakes. Learning from mistakes is the best lesson a designer can learn so that they may not make those same mistakes on the next project.

Works Cited

Elisia, Francesca, and Francesca Elisia. “What’s the Difference Between Human-Centred Design and User Experience Design?” Prototypr, Prototypr, 20 Aug. 2017, blog.prototypr.io/whats-the-difference-between-human-centred-design-and-user-experience-design-2f48e5c9be25.

The design process is one big experiment. IDEO tells us that “Creative confidence will drive you to make things, to test them out, to get it wrong, and to keep on rolling, secure in the knowledge that you’ll get where you need to go and that you’re bound to innovate along the way.”The best creations are born out of trial/error and experimentation that can only be completed after accepting creative confidence.

Design thinking relies on noticing patterns and constructing emotional, meaningful, functional, and impressive ideas. The process is basically one big jumbled loop with ideas thrown around in the middle until the perfect one prevails. It is used to come up with solutions that might not be initially so obvious and encourages exploration through asking questions. The main idea is basically to just brainstorm and think out of the box which is the hardest and most frustrating part of the process for a creative individual. Sometimes it feels like a new idea is impossible to conceive so it’s important to remind yourself of your strengths and keep up your creative confidence.

           Human Design is a different process than any other. When pursuing this type of project, one must really focus their research on humans and what they use and need every single day. Accessibility, usefulness, and convenience are the main goals when creating something in this category. IDEO came up with three main steps to help fellow designers with the process: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. To be successful in any design you must first understand your subject, and when creating Human Centered Design, the first step is observing people’s lives, goals, desires, aspirations, and needs. This way of creating is unique and slightly uncomfortable to tackle at first because you shift between small tangible thoughts to wild abstract conceptual ideas. The outcome will surely be a creation of the process. In other words, don’t worry about trying to envision the final outcome until after the experimental phase is complete. Keep your ideas loose and open until a prototype is created to be tested. Only then will you be able to measure its success.

           The imagination is a hard place to dig through sometimes. Luckily, there are plenty of tips to help whenever you are stuck. Sometimes, the process becomes all too overwhelming and taking a step back by going back to the basics can trigger different creative pathways in the mind. Changing just one basic design elements such as line, shape, texture, space, color, value, tension, proportion, etc. can create something entirely new. Believe it or not, not working can sometimes be the best work, taking breaks throughout the process but continuing to keep that idea in the back of your mind as you go through everyday tasks can help tremendously. Ideas can come to us when walking the dog, taking a shower, or cooking dinner and those are usually some of the best.

           . The most important thing to remember about design thinking is that it isn’t just for designers. The process can help even the most traditional thinkers develop new solutions and force them to think outside their usual realm. Which reminds me, design thinking should not be a solo process. Collaboration and access to other minds and opinions is the most essential tool available. Nobody made it anywhere on their own and when brainstorming or experimenting, fresh eyes are crucial.

Works Cited –

This zine is about collecting data in a place that was formed through collecting items over a period of time.

Dieses Zine befasst sich mit dem Sammeln von Daten an einem Ort der durch das Sammeln von Objekten über eine längere Zeitspanne entstanden ist.

S.3.060 - Neon Addict p.II