During week one, we spent the morning discussing our dissertations. It was interesting seeing how people approached this module in the past. This has definitely helped spark some ideas for my own dissertation.

After lunch, Daniel took over and we began talking about IxD501. Daniel emphasised the importance of not choosing a project with a device already decided. Beforehand, I feel that I was limiting my ideas because I was very focused on developing an app. Now I am definitely going into the ideation stage with a more excited and open mind. It was really useful to go through many methods of idea generation. I noted down quite a few, which can be seen below…

We also discussed how inspiration can be triggered by the mundane. For example, some of the best ideas come to fruition on a walk or just by exploring a new area or other disciplines. When you put the problem to the back of your mind, you let your sub-conscious do the thinking.

Here are some screen grabs of the exercises we completed during class. We also completed a mini project in our groups to come up with a solution for a variety of Zeitgeist problems. It was interesting to learn that almost all of the groups completed their project based on homelessness. We all agreed that this was because it is a problem which we walk past every day in our own city, Belfast.

A lot of us agreed that we were used to working with a junior design method…

We are going to be working towards proposing three ideas, all approached using the senior designer mindset with SWOT analysis’ and problem statements. Currently I feel as though there are so many ideas floating through my head, that these ideation methods will help me jot down all my thoughts and hopefully trigger some valuable ideas.