Ideas in waiting

Some ideas are ideas in waiting. They are in the grey zone between fiction and reality. We turn them into reality when we have the technological means to realise them. But the social, economic, and ethical conditions must be right too.

Design ideation as craft

Although ideas may occur serendipitously, at any time, and in many different places, developing and communicating ideas can be seen as craft which involves skilful use of ideation tools such as words, sketching, physical and digital modelling.

Computer-aided ideation (CAI)

Design computing now goes well beyond documentation and production needs. It includes innovation, simulation and digital fabrication that expands rather than reduces designers' creative options. In short, digital technology promotes experimentation and discovery, what I call Computer-aided ideation, CAI (Jonson 2005).

Designers who focus on innovation through analogue tools alone highlight knowledge and skills of computing technologies. For example: 'Computers arrived too late for me. I don't believe I can use them to their potential. The computer pushes for a rigour that is hard to include in research development; it can't accommodate the doubts that are necessary, and this can be difficult for creativity. I see the computer as another instrument complimentary to sketches, models, reading and so on - not an exclusive way of working'. Alvaro Siza, RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2009.

Ideation logic

There can be logic in ideation, even if it arrives by a most illogical route.

Is there method in design ideation?

Whereas the "Aha!", or "Eureka!" moment may be thought of as a subconscious activity, design ideation, as an integrated whole of generating, developing and communicating ideas, might suggest strategic thinking and not just processes out of our conscious control. Design ideation as strategy, then, might be regarded as a form of experimental science, a series of actions or procedure that can be tested and refined and categorised, classified, defined or codified and so built into methodology.

So for example, TRIZ is a model for generating ideas that relies on the study of the patterns of problems and solutions. Based on logic and data, not on the spontaneous and intuitive creativity of individuals or groups, the effectiveness of TRIZ, is, however, disputed, particularly for non-engineering fields.

Design ideation, then, cannot be regarded as a single, sharply defined methodology; there are many different tools, processes, and philosophies of ideation. See also blog January 16.

Preconceived ideas?

By asking ourselves with some degree of humility whether that which we perceive to be so is simply what we have preprogrammed our minds to see, we may find that the problems we perceive are in fact nothing more than preconceived ideas. The danger, of course, is that real issues may be ignored.

So how do we deal with real issues? Albert Einstein famoulsy observed that problems can’t be solved by the same level of thinking that created them in the first place. Thinking about a situation in the wrong way can literally condemn us to relive the same experiences over and over again. Little will change until we change our thinking. Ideation, then, suggests change in our thinking about a situation. And from change in our thinking new ideas emerge that challenge the past.

The discipline of ideas

However smart, original or clever your ideas are in your head, without the conscious effort to externalise ideas they remain like bright, shiny sport cars with nothing to drive on. The power is there but the car is going nowhere. Indeed, ideas with no wheels!