1. “From the buildings in which we live and work, to the cars we drive, or the knives and forks with which we eat, everything we use was designed to create some sort of marriage between form and function.”
2. The folks at IDEO state that they are not experts in any given area. But, they do claim to be experts on the "process to design stuff", which they apply to the innovation of consumer products.
3. After the team of designers is brought together, told the problem, and informed they have five days to “pull it off,” what phase of the design process do they immediately engage in?
They split up into smaller groups and start to come up with ideas and brainstorm.
4. Give two examples of what the team members did during this phase.
a. They divided themselves up into groups and started to discuss and photograph shopping carts.
b. They interviewed and asked questions of consumers and common users of shopping carts. They also talked to shopping cart manufacturers.
5. List five rules-of-thumb that IDEO employees follow when they share ideas during the brainstorming phase:
a. Stay focused
b. Encourage wild and creative ideas
c. Have only one conversation at a time
d. Encourage the ideas of others
e. Leave judgement behind
6. Why should wild (and sometimes crazy) ideas be entertained during the brainstorming phase?
Becasue even though the idea might be wild, it could lead to the development of another idea that is more succesful. In some cases, the wild idea might even work best.
7. After the brainstorming phase was over, the team narrowed down the hundreds of ideas by using sticky notes for those ideas that were not only “cool” but also "build-able" in a short period of time. What phase of the design process is this called?
This phase is called brainstorming.
8. IDEO believes that the ideas and efforts of a team will always be more successful than the planning of a lone genius.
9. Once the ideas were narrowed down and divided into categories, the group was split into four smaller teams. What phase(s) of the design process was each of these groups responsible for?
They were responsible for modeling and building a prototype.
10. The leaders at IDEO believe that playful behavior and a fun environment are two important reasons why their employees are able to think quickly and creatively to produce innovative results.
11. Sometimes, people come up with great solutions that work by trying their ideas first, and asking for opinions later.
12. Design is often a process of going too far and having to take a few steps back. What phase of the design process would the critique of the four mock-ups come under?
Refining and communicating results.
13. Upon critique of the four teams’ models, it was obvious that none of the teams had developed an optimum solution. However, the people at IDEO believe that it is important to fail often in order to succeed sooner.
14. What percentage of the entire week’s time did it take to fabricate the final prototype?
It took about 14% of the week's time.
15. Instead of showering his design team with a tremendous amount of praise, what did the boss require his employees to do with their new design?
He wanted them to improve it.
16. Of all the things that we are surrounded by every day, what has not been placed through the design process?
Everything has, except for the natural environment.
Conclusion
1. What did you find to be the most impressive part of the team’s effort?
I thought it was cool how they seemed to have so much fun, and were basically playing around, and still got lots og productive work done.
2. What advantages are there to having a design team with members that have non-engineering backgrounds?
This enables the opinions of non-engineers to contribute and improve upon the engineers design.
3. There was a point in the process where a self-appointed group of adults stepped up, stopped the ideas, and redirected the group to break up into teams. Why was this done?
This was done to increase efficiency.
4. At the end of the video, Dave Kelly states, “Look around. The only things that are not designed are the things we find in nature.” Can you think of anything that would contradict this statement?
No
