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0:04
SPEAKER: The ideation phase is where we transition from learning about users and the problem to coming up with solutions. Let's start by discussing what ideation means. As you might have guessed, the term ideation comes from the word idea. Ideation can be defined as the process of generating a broad set of ideas on a given topic with no attempt to judge or evaluate them. The broad set of ideas part is really important. Ideation is all about coming up with lots and lots of ideas,
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and the no judgment part is important, too. We need to be able to explore all ideas without judging them and throwing them out. Some of the most crazy ideas can actually prove to be really valuable. For example, from the early to mid 2000s, mobile phones were getting smaller and smaller. The idea for a drastically larger mobile phone like the iPhone seemed crazy at the time, but history has shown that larger phones ended up meeting users' needs much better than smaller phones.
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Today, companies that make phones brag about the large size of their screens, which is the complete opposite of the conversation 20 years ago. One of the best things about ideation is the mentality that there are no bad ideas. So if coming up with lots of ideas isn't your strongest skill, don't worry. Part of being a designer means intentionally exploring as many ideas as possible, knowing that some of them or even most of them won't work.
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Plus, the more you practice coming up with lots of ideas, the more natural it will feel. So what does ideation look like in the real world for UX designers? A designer, either individually or in a group, brainstorms out loud. Every idea is documented, often on sticky notes or a whiteboard. The goal is quantity of ideas over quality, so share as many ideas as possible. No evaluation is allowed at this stage. If you're brainstorming in a group,
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make sure you gather a diverse team for different backgrounds and perspectives. Question the obvious. It can be difficult to question a common belief or practice if everyone has the same opinions. Finally, after you come up with a bunch of ideas, take a break. Then, everyone should come back together to evaluate the ideas. When reviewing the ideas, it's important to have a reason for picking the idea you move forward with. There are a few common ways to evaluate your ideas.
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First, is the idea feasible? Is it technically possible to build? Next, is the idea desirable? Does it solve the user problem you're focusing on? And lastly, is your idea viable? Is it financially beneficial for the business? If an idea meets these three criteria, it might be a good option to move forward with. All right. So now, we know what ideation is, what ideation looks like in the real world, and how to evaluate ideas. Up next, you'll learn why coming up with lots of ideas is so important.
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Enjoy.
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All right. So now, we know what it means to ideate, but why is coming up with lots of ideas so important? That's what we'll answer in this video. To get our brain pumping, let's ideate solutions for this problem. Olivia is a parent who needs a way to ride her bike with her two-year-old Luca because he can't ride his own bike. There are lots of solutions to this problem that exist already, but let's imagine it's a new product. To solve for this problem, you could design a seat
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behind the adult rider, a seat in front of the adult rider, a bicycle built for two requiring the child to pedal with the adult, a mini bike attachment for the child to ride behind the adult, a basket on the handlebars for the child to sit in, a sidecar like you might find on a motorcycle, a seat that attaches to the adult's helmet, or a covered trailer to pull behind the bike. Are some of these ideas ridiculous? Absolutely. But when you're ideating, you want
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to push past the obvious ideas to get to the innovative ones. Remember, ideation is focused on coming up with a lot of ideas. Why? For one, the list of your ideas will be narrowed down when you have to think about constraints, like budget and timelines. For example, your biggest idea might not be possible because of your team's budget constraints. You want to start with a long list of potential ideas so that when constraints are introduced, you still have solutions that could work.
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In addition, we need to come up with ideas that are equitable. The first idea you come up with might be perfect for you as a user, but when we're designing with equity in mind, we want to make sure that the design works for everyone who will use the product. There are a lot of solutions to every problem, but we want to find the one that works best for your users, not you. Lastly, keep in mind that you might not be the one to decide which idea is the best solution.
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Instead, let users test a bunch of your ideas, and they might find the right answer. So now that you understand why exploring lots of ideas is so beneficial, we can start the ideation process. Coming up, we will show you how to evaluate ideas based on business needs.
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We now know how to come up with lots of ideas and evaluate those ideas. As you ideate, it's important to think about the business you are designing for. This includes the business's voice, tone, and budget. That's what we'll focus on in this video, understanding the business needs behind design. UX designers often work closely with marketing and branding teams. That's because branding has a big effect on how users experience a product. Two major components of branding are voice and tone.
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Even though a brand isn't a human being, it still has a personality. Users don't want to communicate with a brand that uses robotic-sounding language. Instead, users want to interact with the brand whose voice and tone sounds human and engaging. Here's the thing. Voice and tone have a huge impact on a user's experience with a product. For example, imagine you place an order online for shoes and receive a confirmation email that says, "Great choice!
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Your purchase should be landing on your doorstep in the next five days. Let us know how much you love it." When you order another pair of shoes from a different company, the confirmation says, "Order shipped. Estimated arrival, five to seven business days." The first email feels enthusiastic and conversational, while the second email feels cold and detached. Small changes in language communicate a brand's voice and tone and help improve the user experience. As we continue through this program,
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you'll see how design can help facilitate a conversation between a business and its users. For example, Apple and Google might each have a product that focuses on similar user needs, but the approach, tone, and branding for that product can be really different. In addition, we need to keep in mind the fundamentals of driving sales when designing. For example, imagine you are designing an e-commerce site. You want to make it easy to find the Check Out button.
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This improves the user experience and drive sales, so your design benefits both the customer and the business. A win-win. Finally, it's helpful to research your brand's competitors as part of the design exploration. Knowing the successes and failures of your competition can help influence your design decisions. That might involve asking questions like, how do your competitors approach the checkout cart? Or what does your competitor's sign-up process look like?
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To recap, we need to consider both the business needs and the user's needs when designing. Next, we'll investigate our competitors, so get your detective gear ready.
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A competitive audit is an overview of your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. We know that it's important to come up with lots of ideas before deciding on one solution. A competitive audit is just one tool to explore ideas for designs so we can learn from others about what has worked and not worked. Let's begin by discussing what you can learn from a competitive audit. This includes identifying your key competitors, reviewing the products that your competitors offer,
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understanding how your competitors position themselves in the market, examining what your competition does well and what they could do better, and considering how your competitors talk about themselves. So who do you consider to be your competition? To be thorough, you should include both direct and indirect competitors in your audit. Grab your magnifying glass. Direct competitors have offerings, meaning products, services, or features, that are similar to your product
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and focus on the same audience. Essentially, you're both trying to solve the same problem. Indirect competitors are a little more nuanced. They either have a similar set of offerings but focus on a different audience than you, or they have a different set of offerings and focus on the same audience as you. For example, let's say you're creating a weight loss app that focuses on people in their 30s. Your direct competitors are other companies that also make weight loss apps targeted
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at people in their 30s. Your indirect competitors are any company that makes health or wellness apps targeted at people in their 30s or make weight loss apps targeted at people in a different age bracket. It's helpful to audit a wide range of products that compete with yours to get a full picture of the landscape. In UX design, competitive audits are important for a few key reasons. Let's investigate. First, they help inform your design process. How did your competitors approach
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designing their products? Knowing what others have done can help you make better design decisions for your own product. Second, competitive audits help you solve usability problems. Is your competitor's website difficult to use? If so, you know what to avoid for your own website. Third, competitive audits can reveal gaps in the market. Are there user needs your competitors do not meet? Your product might be able to address these user needs. Fourth, competitive audits provide reliable evidence.
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Why is it important to gather evidence? Design ideas are most successful when there's a deep understanding of business needs and market gaps. Competitive audits are a huge part of gathering that information. Knowing all of these things can help you save time, money, and energy. I know we all want to be detectives, but who actually conducts an audit? Well, it depends on where you work. A smaller company might have a single UX designer conduct the audit, while a larger company might have
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an entire team to do the work. Either way, it's important for you to know how to put together a competitive audit because it's critical to your work as a UX designer.
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Let's start with the biggest limitation first. Competitive audits can stifle creativity. If you spend too much time focusing on what others are doing, you might prevent yourself from creating a truly innovative product. Innovation doesn't happen by copying the competition. The key is to understand what the competition is doing and use that as a starting point to push forward and innovate. Another limitation is that the success of the competitive audit depends on how well you
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interpret the findings. Analyzing data can be tricky, and it's a skill that you'll develop throughout your career as a designer. Working on a team can be helpful here as you'll have others to interpret the data with. Another thing to keep in mind while doing a competitive audit is that not all designs work in all use cases. The features that work well for a competitor might not work well for your product if you serve different users. For example, imagine you're designing a website
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for a clothing company. A competitor has a feature that shows photos of customers wearing their brand's clothing on social media. But if your audience doesn't regularly use social media, this feature is not a good fit for your clothing website. One last thing to call out. You should do competitive audits on a regular basis, not just once. You want to stay on top of what your competitors are doing and keep an eye out for new competitors that might emerge. All right.
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Now that we've discussed why we do competitive audits and their limitations, coming up, we'll share the specific steps to take when conducting a competitive audit. Let's go.
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Now that you understand why we use competitive audits, let's go through how to conduct one. The first step is to outline the goals for your competitive audit. Make sure your goals are specific. It can help to break down your goals into the different product features you want to compare. For example, imagine you're reviewing three competing e-commerce websites. Your overall goal is to compare the features of the shopping experience on each site.
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If we broke that goal down to be a bit more specific, there are a few features you might focus on comparing-- customer reviews and ratings, return policy details, or delivery and in-store pickup options. Or imagine you are reviewing two subscription-based music streaming platforms. In this case, your competitive audit might focus on features like pricing options, browse and search functions, and creating and sharing playlists. As you might notice, your specific goals
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will differ based on the kinds of companies you review, so these two examples are just a small fraction of the goals your audit might include. OK. Now, you've outlined the goals for your competitive audit. Next up, step two. Create a spreadsheet with a list of your competitors. You should aim to include 5 to 10 competitors in your list. Some of the competitors should be direct, and others should be indirect. As a reminder, direct competitors have offerings that are similar to your product
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and focus on the same audience. Essentially, you're both trying to solve the same problem. Indirect competitors either have a similar set of offerings but focus on a different audience or have a different set of offerings and focus on the same audience. Including both direct and indirect competitors in your audit gives a better picture of the full competitive landscape. With your list of competitors in mind, you're ready for step three. Call out the specific features you want to compare.
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This list of features should align to your goals for the audit. Let's quickly review a template. The names of your competitors are listed down the left side of the spreadsheet, and the names of the features you want to compare are listed across the top. Now that your template is all set up, you're ready for step four, research. Visit each competitor's website or app and take notes about their features. Remember to include details like what works well,
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what could be improved, and whether your competitors' features meet the needs of your specific audience. It's also helpful to take lots of screenshots and link to them in the spreadsheet. These will be important to have for your report and presentation later on. After you've collected all the information in your spreadsheet, it's time for step five. Analyze your findings. Try to spot trends and themes. Ask yourself, what are the similarities between you and your competitors?
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Is there a certain feature that your competitors all approach in the same way? And finally, the last step in a competitive audit is to summarize your findings in a report. Your report might be a slide presentation or a document. It's helpful to include screenshots and simple charts or graphics. We'll go into more detail about how to present your findings later.
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Let's take a step back and remember how competitive audits fit into the larger UX design process. As we've discussed, it's important to come up with lots of ideas before deciding on one solution. To explore ideas for designs, there are many tools you can use. A competitive audit is one. Let's take that one step further. How can we use the learnings from our competitive audit to come up with even more ideas? Start by making a simple matrix based on your competitive audit research.
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Focus on only the biggest themes from your competitive audit, like the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, which are listed across the top of the matrix. Then, to focus your brainstorm, list a few features that you researched during your competitive audit down the left side of the matrix. For this example, let's say we compared visual design usability and usefulness of our competitors' products. Finally, select your brainstorm group. Try to bring together a team that
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can ideate from different perspectives, including designers, researchers, writers, and engineers. Now, you're ready to start brainstorming. Take your team through the matrix and make sure they understand the strengths and weaknesses that you've listed. Start by identifying low-hanging fruit. These are easy-to-accomplish tasks that can make a difference to your product with minimal effort. This means you should come up with ideas that can be easily implemented in your design,
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such as consistent formatting or adding more color. Next ask the team to brainstorm gaps or opportunities. For example let's say that two of your competitors have a difficult sign-up process. Is your product sign-up process easy? Can you update your sign-up process design to make your product stand out compared to competitors? As you come up with ideas for how your product can do better, you may even discover new strengths that your competitors haven't thought of yet.
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Once you've come up with lots of ideas, begin sorting them. You can group similar ideas together to uncover patterns, and a few ideas will naturally rise to the top. Your goal is to walk away from this brainstorm with a list of ideas that help your product stand out from the competition.
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How Might We? is a design thinking activity used to translate problems into opportunities for design. Let's break that down. The word "how" encourages us to explore a bunch of ideas instead of moving forward with only one idea for the solution. The word "how" suggests that we don't have an answer yet. The word "might" emphasizes that our ideas are possible solutions, not the only solution. Finally, the word "we" suggests a collaborative effort. Coming up with ideas requires teamwork.
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Think back to our example from earlier. Olivia is a parent who needs a way to ride her bike with her two-year-old Luca because he can't ride his own bike. We came up with a lot of potential solutions to Olivia's need. Let's try coming up with some more ideas using the How Might We? exercise. For example, how might we design a seat for a child to ride a bike with an adult? Well, that's a fairly broad question. What about, how might we design a safe, forward-facing seat
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that attaches to an adult's bicycle so that a child can choose to ride or sleep while an adult rides on a mountain trail? That's too specific. Try this instead. How might we design a safe and comfortable seat for a child to ride a bike with an adult? The phrasing of that last question is what we're looking for during a How Might We? exercise. The question should be specific in describing the needs of the user but still have room for innovation in the final product.
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This means the question is broad enough to leave space for solutions that might not be evident yet. As we know, during the ideation phase, we want to come up with a lot of ideas. So for this exercise, we want to come up with a lot of How Might We? questions, not just one. Coming up with How Might We? questions can be tricky. To help, the design school at Stanford University outlines a bunch of ways to create How Might We? phrases. Some of them include, amp up the good.
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For example, how might we create a traveling experience for a parent and child to enjoy together? Explore the opposite. How might we design a bike for a two-year-old to ride with an adult instead of our original framing of an adult who wants to ride a bike with a two-year-old? Change a status quo. How might we improve public transportation options in Olivia's hometown so that she has options other than biking? And break the point-of-view into pieces.
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How might we make a two-year-old comfortable on a bike? How might we easily travel from point A to point B? There are more ways to reframe the problem covered in the course readings, too. Asking How Might We? questions is just one way to ideate and approach a design problem. It might be incredibly helpful to you and your team, or you might find another exercise that works better. Either way, reframing the user's need as a question can help you think of your users and their needs in a new way.
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Next, we'll talk about another ideation process, sketching. Sketching is just what it sounds like-- drawing your potential solutions to the design problem. Coming up, we'll go over a popular and useful way to sketch that's called Crazy Eights. Get excited.
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So this is it. We're ready to start drawing. For some of you, this will be your favorite part of design. For others, drawing can be a little intimidating. The good news is that we're going to create truly simple designs. In fact, your drawings don't actually have to look like anything in particular. Remember that in the ideation phase, we're just exploring lots of ideas, not trying to create something beautiful. So let me show you. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil or marker.
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We're going to practice sketching. Let's start by drawing basic shapes-- triangles, squares, and circles. Add in straight and squiggly lines. Sprinkle in a few stick figures of humans. You might need a bit of text as well. Here's a pro tip. Use all caps if your handwriting isn't neat, and write horizontally so it's easy to read.
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Soon, when you're more experienced, you might switch from drawing basic shapes to drawing phone screens or websites so that your sketches look more realistic, but for now, just draw what you know. So there you go. You've learned to sketch. Simple right? To learn more about the benefits of sketching and explore some techniques, check out the reading materials in the course. You might be wondering why we sketch by hand and don't do this on a computer where
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it's easy to copy and paste premade shapes. Well, you certainly can do this on a computer, but the point of sketching is to move as quickly as possible to record lots of ideas. Technology can sometimes hold us back when our hands want to move faster than our brains, so sketching by hand is a valuable skill for you to master. Remember our example from earlier where Olivia needed a way to ride her bike with her two-year-old who couldn't ride his own bike?
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We came up with eight ideas to solve Olivia's problem. That process was basically a polished version of Crazy Eights. This type of ideation is a very common part of the design sprint process. In the ideate phase of a design sprint, the whole team might come together and do the Crazy Eights exercise. Crazy Eights lets you compare ideas, see everyone's different ideas, and narrow down the list of ideas before moving on with the best solutions. And don't forget the best solution is always
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what your users think is best and not what you or your team thinks is best. Right now, to get started, you'll try the Crazy Eights exercise on your own. So the setup for Crazy Eights is easy. You'll need a large sheet of paper. Regular printer paper will work fine, but if you have something larger, that's even better. Fold the paper in half, then fold it in half again, then in half one more time.
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Now, you have eight rectangles that are about the same size. Each of the eight spaces will be for a different idea. That's where the Crazy Eights name comes from, if you were wondering. Next, find something to draw with. A lot of designers like Sharpies because they create distinct lines, or you might want to use a pencil so that you can darken certain areas. You'll also need a timer. The Crazy Eights exercise will take eight minutes, one minute for each idea. Any kind of timer will work--
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your phone, Google Search, or a wind-up kitchen timer. Finally, you'll need to refer to a problem statement. You'll sketch eight ideas to address that problem. To inspire you, let's go through an example based on a new problem statement. Charles is a retired grandfather who needs a way to keep his essential belongings with him because he often loses track of his wallet. I'll draw eight ideas for this one to serve as an example. Later, you'll do this exercise yourself.
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Remember, no idea is too wild, so I'll draw any solution that comes to mind. Here we go. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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Here are some of the ideas I came up with to address our problem statement. Let's walk through four of them. As a reminder, our problem statement was, Charles is a retired grandfather who needs a way to keep his essential belongings with him because he often loses track of his wallet. Sketch one, an alarm that goes off as Charles opens and closes his house's exterior doors to remind him to bring certain belongings like his wallet, keys, and phone. Sketch two, a sign on his front door
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that says, "Remember to take these things with you. Place them here when you get home." Sketch three, a doormat with a checklist that says, phone, keys, and wallet. Sketch four-- and my personal favorite-- shoes with false bottoms that he can keep a wallet in. Now, you are ready to try Crazy Eights on your own. Try using a problem statement that we outlined earlier in the course like this one. Amal is an athlete who needs a way to sign up for workout classes, because the class he
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wants to participate in fills up fast. Or choose your own problem statement. Pause the video and start your timer. Remember, spend one minute on each idea and sketch possible solutions to solve this problem.
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Congratulations! You just did your first set of Crazy Eights. How did that feel? Were you able to come up with eight ideas? The Crazy Eights exercise is great practice for any design problem you need to solve. The sketching and ideating both get easier the more you do it.
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As a refresher, a user journey is the series of experiences a user has while interacting with a product. Building off personas and stories, journeys help you think and feel like the user. Earlier, we defined this problem statement. Olivia is a parent who needs a way to ride her bike with her two-year-old son Luca because he can't ride his own bike. But we didn't actually create user personas for Olivia and Luca. As a refresher, personas are fictional characters
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that represent a product's user groups. They're created to identify a user's behavioral patterns. In the real world, we would have completed research before beginning our designs. For example, consider the kid's bike seat that's in front of the rider. This is a pretty great solution for toddlers who are small but still strong enough to sit upright. But what if Luca were an infant? A small baby wouldn't be able to sit upright in that seat or wear a helmet, so it's not a safe solution for Luca.
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Or if Luca is much bigger but isn't able to ride his own bike because he has special needs or there's too much traffic for a child to ride alone, that seat arrangement won't work either. It's OK if a specific design doesn't work for everyone who shares Olivia's problem of needing a safe bike seat for her child, but part of the research process requires you as the UX designer to figure out who you're designing for and what their needs are. Olivia might need an entirely new solution.
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So think back to your user journeys for the problem statement you outlined and designed for. Did you keep those personas in mind while sketching? If not, go back and add their stories and needs into your designs. Maybe you're not sure you have enough research to make the call on what solution Olivia really needs. In this hypothetical interview, did you forget to ask Olivia how tall her child is or what his specific needs are? And what about Olivia's needs? Some of our bike solutions from before
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could create an extra hassle for the rider. I'm looking at you, sidecar. If Olivia rides her bike on back country roads, that might work perfectly. But if she lives in a big city with designated bike lanes on busy streets, the size of the sidecar probably wouldn't be a good solution either. It's OK if you didn't ask the right questions. You're still learning. Plus, sometimes in the ideation phase, new blockers come up that never occurred to us before. If this happens, consider whether you
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have enough information to go forward or whether you need to go back to your research and collect more data. This work you've done from writing user personas to mapping the user journey to exploring design concepts through sketching is a great story to tell in your portfolio. It might not be a final project that you decide to share, but telling the story of the research, the problem, and the proposed solutions is good practice for the more detailed case studies
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you'll have in the future, and it's something employers might look for when reviewing your portfolio. All right. We've reached the end of the ideate phase. Let's review what you've learned. Understanding design ideation, conducting competitive audits, brainstorming approaches like How Might We? and Crazy Eights, and determining if we need additional research. Coming up next, we're going to dig into user experience research. This is my personal area of expertise,
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so I'm really excited to share what I know with you. See you soon. DAVE: Congratulations on finishing this course from the Google UX Design Certificate. You can access the full experience, including job search help, and start to earn your certificate by clicking on the icon or the link in the description below. Watch the next video in the course by clicking here, and subscribe to our channel for more from upcoming
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