In Class Exercise III: Exploring Solutions - Speed Dating for Ideas

tl;dr: Rapidly explore design ideas for an ambient display that displays some meaningful data (e.g. a new tweet, your bus/uber/taxi is arriving, traffic is heavy, you've forgotten to do something, you air quality is poor, you're using too much electricity) Work with a partner to quickly brainstorm and generate ideas. Refine the design for one of these ideas.

Learning Objective

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.

Time Required

1hour - 1.5 hours (depending on time)

Materials

• Paper

• Pens, sharpies or markers

• White board

Instructions

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.

Problem space:

You’ve carte blanche here. You need to create the following:

• an ambient device
• that shows some data (up to you, but should be feasibly attained)
• in a context (e.g. workplace, in the world, on a desk, etc.)
• to help someone do something.

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.

Part 1: Organize

Organize in a group of ~ 20 people (if there are more, divide into two groups of 20, etc.) such that:

1. 10 people along one side of the table

2. 10 people along the other

Now, we should have half the group facing the other half! Let’s begin

Part 2: Brainstorm

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

Part 3: Rinse and Repeat.

• 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

Part 4: Report out / Post Up

• 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.

Part 5: Vote [optional/time permitting]

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!

Submitting your work:

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.