Ideation for the real world

Design ideation may suggest that the design process starts with no preconceived notions. That is, the designer start with a blank sheet of paper waiting to be filled with ideas. Or, in the words of John Locke (1632-1704), the English philosopher, who stated that the mind is like a slate scraped  free of all markings, or a tabula rasa, and that humans do not have innate ideas. Locke, then, was a leading proponent of empiricism, the theory that stresses the role of experience and evidence, and particularly sensory experience. Yet while the notion that design begins with a blank slate is attractive, the everyday lived experience tells us that the environment around us (from natural to socio-economic-political factors) influence ideation -  the ways we generate ideas, and both in terms of process and content. In this sense, empiricism is one of the foundation stones for ideation for the real world. Indeed empiricism helps the understanding of the marketplace, which in turn influences the ideation stage of the design process. Ideas which then feed into design development and production adjusted to meet both global and local needs and preferences.