During this exercise students will rapidly iterate solutions to potential IoT solutions as a speed dating exercise. This in part will illustrate the multitude of potential objects which can be imbued with intelligence, connectedness and information; and in part provide a framework to move beyond the most obvious solutions or ‘low-hanging’ fruit.
By the end of this exercise, students will:
have generated dozens of ideas for potential IoT applications;
have gone beyond the obvious solution to explore potentially more innovative ideas and solutions
have collaboratively identified potential conceptual designs for an IoT problem which they can use in their creative assignments.
1hour - 1.5 hours (depending on time)
Paper
Pens, sharpies or markers
White board
We’re going to do speed dating for ideas. You’re going to brainstorm quickly with a partner, on person stays put, the other moves. We’ll each design with one other person and generate hundreds of potential ideas.
An ambient display that helps someone with their finances (e.g. helps financial decision making, reveals financial health, makes digital payments tangible, etc.) Work with a partner to quickly brainstorm and generate ideas. Refine the design for one of these ideas i.e. what’s in the collaborative project brief.
Organize in a group of ~ 20 people (if there are more, divide into two groups of 20, etc.) such that:
10 people along one side of the table
10 people along the other
Now, we should have half the group facing the other half! Let’s begin
THE RULES: You have 5 minutes to sketch a solution with the person you are facing. It must be clear and legible so that if viewed by anyone else it will be clear, readable and understandable.
You should:
Sketch a design for an ambient device (combine online data + simple presentation in real space for ambient, glanceable displays). Note it could use visual, acoustic, motor, vibrotactile or some other form of output to make it glanceable.
Each time make it distinctly different from any previous design
Time’s up. One group stays where they are. The other group moves one person to the left
You have 5 minutes. Create a solution that is distinctly different from your previous solutions (data, form, use, etc.)
Repeat until everyone has met and created one idea together. Each time, your next design must be distinctly different from any previous design
One person should now have 10 ideas in front of them. Post them up on the wall or on the desks.
Once they are posted, we’ll tour each desk and get a quick summary of one of their favorite ideas.
Each person has 6 points, which can be allocated as follows using dot voting
3 points for your favorite
2 for your next favorite
1 for your next favorite
Find the three ideas you like best, and give them your votes by making a dot in the top left corner.
Tally up the votes and discuss which ideas win out - and which we should make!
Capture your ideas with a photo and Post in the #projects channel on Slack. Include a write up/summary of your discussion and photos of your brainstorming work / process.