This week we are looking at rapid ideation, it is a way to quickly come up with ideas, it can be done as a group or solo depending on what you are trying to achieve. It promotes thinking outside the box, it allows you to think creatively and explore ideas without judgement or much risk and it is within a time constraint. Some really great ideas can happen and even if the ideas are not so great, you can learn from them. You can learn as much from things that won’t work as things that might. Last week we looked at creativity and went through some ideation techniques to help foster creativity. You can read about that here.
This week instead of thinking from a solo perspective and the techniques you can use, I want to explore co-creative events, in these group design-sprint type events, you work together in groups to ideate and hopefully find the solution to a problem and develop prototypes. Collaborating and utilising a breadth of knowledge from multiple experiences and expertise.
Hackathons are an exploratory exercise rather than “hacking” in a security sense. There are many different types of hackathon and jam events, some focus on apps, games, operating systems, web development for example. But they can be for any problem that needs solving, that would benefit from creative ideas across a broader spectrum of experience and expertise. Game jams obviously focus on game creation but they are still a collaborative event, just with perhaps a slightly different target audience.
The main goal is usually to create some sort of functioning software or hardware (prototype) by the end of the event. It’s where anyone involved in the development of a product would take part, for instance computer programmers, graphic designers, game designers, UI designers, UX designers, product managers and project managers all come together to offer their perspective and expertise towards solving the problem.
Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. - C.S Lewis
Collaboration is an important part of creation. Collaboration tends to lead to more innovation, improves communication and problem solving as a team, work flows become smoother and tasks get completed faster. Through listening to and learning from team members, a group of people can come together and contribute a mixed set of skills and perspectives for the benefit of a shared objective. Different experiences and skill sets coming together can help you grow your own expertise and diversify your knowledge, from collaboration you can become multi skilled. A way to illustrate that is through skill shapes.
A skill shape refers to the unique skill set associated with a certain career or individual. Some of these shape profiles are I, T, π (Pi) and M there are variations on this theme like comb shaped and E shaped even X shaped. For now I will just cover the first four I mentioned because they can flow from one to the next quite nicely, as knowledge in different areas increases. An I shaped person has a specialism in a subject but no general knowledge in different areas they have depth of knowledge in one area but no breadth of knowledge outside that specialism. A T shaped person has a specialism too, but also has a breadth of general knowledge in other areas. As you grow and develop skills and specialisms in different areas the shape changes so to become a Pi shaped person you would specialise in two areas and have a good general knowledge across other fields. I think this is an easy way to visualise it. Collaborating with people from different specialisms increases your breadth of knowledge.
In The Design Thinking Playbook (Lewrick, Link and Leifer, 2018) they discuss the importance of interdisciplinary teams and “The profile of an adaptive employee who develops further in addition to his specialisation. Such an employee is not only able, like in the T profile, to steep himself in the discipline of his colleagues and understand it; he also has the ability to respond to challenges of everyday working life and educate himself accordingly. In this way, he can assume multiple roles, which usually are linked to one another in terms of content: for example, business analyst and UX designer or software developer and support employee. Within the company, such a profile contributes to increased flexibility in the composition of the teams, something especially relevant to smaller companies with limited resources and a quickly fluctuating order situation.”
Knowledge sharing is an important part of collaboration and can only help you become a better designer.
The true method of knowledge is experiment. - William Blake
Prototyping is a way to give a design presence. The prototyping process is experimentation, where a team implements an idea into a tangible form. It enables you to test and re iterate an idea. There are lots of ways to prototype, from paper to digital and there are various degrees of fidelity and you can test them on users to get an insight into how they will behave with the product.
Prototypes are a way to validate your designs and refine and re iterate whatever product you are designing. It is one of the most important steps in the process as it enables you to adapt to changes early and avoid mistakes. It may slow you down, but in the long run it is worth it to potentially save costs and time later in the development.
Preventing an issue through vigorous testing is far more cost effective and efficient than trying to fix a problem that could have been resolved in earlier iterations.
Some of the techniques are listed below:
Can be used in any stage of the design process from drawing out brainstormed ideas to building prototypes. Personally I don’t go anywhere without a notepad to sketch out ideas in.
Storyboarding is the process of sketching out progression. Each frame includes an image/notes of the concept.
Paper prototyping is paper representations of digital products to help with concepts and test designs.
Physical modeling is a way of simulating systems that consist of real physical components, it allows for more accurate user testing.
White boxing or grey boxing is a game development term, in which you would model an object using simple shapes to represent the volume and size of the final object.
Wireframing is where you would visually represent information architecture, structure, visual design and functionality.
Game prototyping is the simplest possible version of a design concept. It is where game designer builds an example of their game in order to test the gameplay.
Narrative prototyping is where you would walk through the steps to build a compelling narrative, test your product as an interactive story, and improve the final experience before a single line of code is written.
Wireflows are a combination of both wireframes and flowcharts enabling you to document user workflows and complex interactions for mobile and web apps.
Bodystorming takes the customer viewpoint into account. Instead of trying to visualize or imagine how a product might be used. It requires acting it out as though the product already exists.
The Wizard of Oz method allows a user to interact with an interface without knowing that the responses are being generated by a human rather than a computer.
Reverse engineer the finished work of another practitioner you admire.
This allows you to practise with the various tools and unpack the design theory behind the work in question. Identify an artefact you feel is particularly interesting. This could be anything from an inventory system UI for a game to a museum website that utilises AR or VR.
The more experimental and interactive the artefact you choose, the more challenging this prototyping activity will be. Select one or two prototyping methods and build quick prototypal representations of your chosen artefact.
Note down any interesting characteristics of the artefact. Perhaps, you notice the colour palette is used in a certain way or the layout follows a standard grid system. Depending on your chosen artefact, you might want to annotate the dimensions and analyse the padding and spacing used. If you are creating a storyboard for a cutscene in a game, you could identify key components of the narrative arc or highlight various camera shots and how they are used to create drama.
For this weeks activity I decided to look at Netlix, as a user who has spent many hours procrastinating by binge watching (oops), I thought it would be an interesting one to look at from a UX perspective. Netflix started out as a DVD rental company and I am pretty sure they single handedly put Blockbuster out of business, you could rent DVD’s via post and there was even Netflix vending machines (or did I dream that?) , I think they started out that you paid per use, but then moved into a subscription model. They shifted their business model to fit what users wanted and have since changed how millions of users consume entertainment by shifting from a DVD subscription service to a streaming service via an app.
You’re now able to watch content on a number of devices on demand seamlessly, it is data driven and tailored to your specific viewing history. The user experience encourages you to keep watching, with simple things like autoplaying the next episode and suggesting new content based on what you have watched previously.
I decided to look at Netflix on the phone as the interface is slightly different on that compared to tablet or tv, but it flows very similarly to the Tablet and TV apps. I first looked at how Netflix collects data and suggests content to users, I looked at how things were categorised and then looked at the interface that Netflix uses to suggest the new content. The database is vast and items seem to sit within multiple categories and they use key words attached to certain content, for example ” Mind-Bending, Offbeat, Superhero” which allows it to be suggested to more people. For instance someone who likes a certain genre may have something suggested that is just outside of their preferred genre, but because they have watched a series of “superhero” content, anything with that tag will later be suggested even if it doesn’t quite fit their usual content. Netflix still push it to the person because of the multiple tags they assign to their content. I looked at information architecture and I also looked at the tools they use to keep you on the app like the auto play function and when the content ends a similar set of content is then suggested as you may like it and it will keep you on the app and using the service.
Netflix is absolutely huge from a database and information perspective so while I took a little look at that side of things I think for this reverse engineering I need to be more focused on smaller segments of the app rather than the whole of it. Looking at sections of the user interface and layout of the app rather than delving into the full scope of it.
I think that while the Netflix model is very good at keeping you on the app, it can also become frustrating as there is so much content, I think sometimes there is almost a choice paralysis and you end up just scrolling and not deciding what to watch. I think while the AI is great, perhaps with improved feedback the AI would be more accurate and suggestions would come up and that would help with this paradox of choice.
I decided to paper prototype for this one as it is a reverse engineering task and Netflix as an app is already built so I feel it a bit unnecessary to create a higher fidelity prototype when the actual product is already built. I created a series of paper prototypes to display the home screen and profile editing function, the category menu and the main display screen once you have logged in. I also looked at the interface when you go into a series or movie and what they have displayed within that area.
The tablet and phone apps have a games option too, “unlimited access to exclusive games” I have not explored this section of the app, as I just don’t have the time.
There is the main series or film advertised which seems to be linked to what is in your list or most watched genres, below that is the top 10 TV shows in your country, this keeps you up to date with what is popular and people are more likely to view something if others have viewed it and liked it, sort of a “bandwagon effect”.
Below that is your continue watching – previous content you have not had time to finish is conveniently located so you can continue where you left off. There is also a “trending” area, I am not sure how that really differs from top 10 films or series.
There are most recent releases and then various categories including “My List” and “because you watched x” the categories seem to be different to the drop-down menu too. I feel like that confuses the navigation a little bit.
Over all I think Netflix is obviously a successful app and does its job, but I do feel like some simplifications and navigation improvements could be made from my own user perspective.
I have really struggled with procrastination the past couple of weeks, I have been putting off working on University work as I have been so busy at work and in my personal life. I need to make sure that going forward I plan better for times when I will be away or more busy and stressed with “life stuff” While I had fun going to Glastonbury and my work is on track I feel the stress of being a couple of weeks behind on Uni work and I think my process has suffered for it, because I am behind I am thinking about being behind rather than just doing the work! Instead of doing fun things this weekend I have made time to make up the work as I am away again doing a charity event next week so may fall even further behind.
- LEWRICK, M., LINK, P. and LEIFER, L., 2018. The design thinking playbook. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- OOMEN, M 'Netflix: How a DVD rental company changed the way we spend our free time' https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/exponential-business-model/netflix/ [Accessed 16 June 2022]
- MADRIGAL, A.C 'How Netflix Reverse-Engineered Hollywood' https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/how-netflix-reverse-engineered-hollywood/282679/ [Accessed 16 June ]
The Design thinking playbook
Lewrick, M., Link, P. and Leifer, L., 2018. The design thinking playbook. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.