From Idea to App

Ideation – The First Step

Each product that has ever been designed first started with a simple idea. Luckily, there are hundreds of ways to generate ideas! Ideation techniques are crucial to remaining productive during the creative process. As I began to think of ideas for my next app, I realized that utilizing more than just one technique will lead to a more fleshed out idea.

“Ideation is the mode of the design process in which you concentrate on idea generation. Mentally it represents a process of “going wide” in terms of concepts and outcomes. Ideation provides both the fuel and also the source material for building prototypes and getting innovative solutions into the hands of your users.”
– d.school, An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE

The Idea Flow

To design an app that would suit my daily life, I utilized three different ideation techniques: Brain Dump, Mind Map, and Sketch Storm. Brain Dump involves jotting down as many ideas as you can in a slotted amount of time. For this project, I set a timer for 15 minutes to allow myself enough wiggle room to generate enough ideas. After my 15 minute session, I developed three primary app ideas: a Food Nutrition App, Basketball Stats Tracking App, as well as a Ticket Queue App.

After thinking about the ideas a bit more, I ultimately decided to focus my attention and narrow it down to the Ticket Queue App. The reasoning for this app came about due to my recent venture into collecting Pokemon cards. Because of the current market for cards, it is extremely difficult to order pokemon cards online without the help of automated bots. To combat this, I thought about the following questions: What if we could have an app that makes it easier to keep track when a new item is stocking, tells you when is the best time to purchase, and make the checkout process easier?

Massaging the Concept

So, we have a concept….now what do we do with it? Mind mapping was another ideation technique that served as a great tool in connecting thoughts together. As I come up with ideas sporadically, drawing connections towards different ideas and thoughts helped me identify similar themes. It was during this process that I came up with a potential name for the app “Restock Radar” as well as fine tuned the design and features a bit more. After completing the map, it was a lot easier to visualize what a potential “radar” app could look like.

To see my app in real life, I utilized one last ideation tactic called Sketch Storming. Finally, it was time to put my artistic drawing skills to the test! Sketching a rough outline of what the app pages helped me visualize all of the features I wanted to include and assisted me in explore the design further.

Conclusion

After experimenting with three ideation methods (Brain Dump, Mind Map, and Sketch Storm), I realized that there are so many different ways to generate ideas. Personally, I felt that all three played a pivotal role in the construction of my “final” idea as the app traversed to its early stage phases.

I felt that some sort of brain dumping activity to start with is most essential to formulating an idea while mind mapping and sketch storming were great activities to put finer details and mold the words into an actual idea.

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