Reflection on viability & ideation work
“The purpose of brainstorming is not to find the one perfect design for your project. That will come later. Instead, the reason to ideate is to generate many concepts as rapidly as possible. At this point in the design process, quantity — not quality — is what matters the most. You want a wide variety of concepts that approach the project from a wide variety of angles. Even ideas that seem outlandish and completely unfeasible are welcome.” Dan Saffer, Designing for Interaction
In working through my “outlandish and completely unfeasable” sketches and prototypes, some favorites emerged, and we presented three ideas to the Thesis Panel on 11/29. Developing a storyboard scenario of how the product works, then fitting the idea into the Business Model Canvas to explore a potential business framework took the post-it thoughts to the next level of ideation where the project began to feel more “real.”
Concept 1: The Family Food Report
What’s Working:
- Buyers expressed their interest in a site or app similar to this.
- One tester said, “I really love the “Swap Up” section. Especially because I always wonder which would be a better choice and don’t always feel like reading and interpreting labels.”
What’s not working:
- Possibly too judgmental.
- The ladder is not a one-size-fits-all model for nutrition, I need a family-friendly, trusted nutrition guideline.
- Interim shopping for fresh items and multiple shopping destinations during the week could skew weekly results
- Expressed interest in seeing results in real-time, instead of after the fact.
- Needs to focus on a holistic experience, where it is not just about ingredients, but the meals as whole
Concept 2: In-Store Nutrition Scanner
What’s Working:
- Buyers view visualizations of nutritional guidance in the moment, while shopping
What’s not working:
- Concerns over store data, brand data, and partnerships are a big issue, can this idea stand alone and be impartial?
Concept 3: Trying the “Mindless Margin”, or, do 1 simple thing a day mobile app
What’s Working:
- simplicity of an uncomplicated, single-purpose application
What’s not working:
- Maybe too simple?
- Currently not targeted at the family, a more individual path
Next Steps
After presenting these concepts and reviewing the ideas with the panel and my advisor, I still feel strongly about the strengths of these ideas and am eager to move into refining them, and even perhaps combining the best parts of each idea into a new working concept. Having just recently discovered a very similar execution of what I was planning on developing at Gojee, and also Fooducate, I want to be sure to create something unique to address different aspects of eating behavior than are already addressed with these tools. In an effort to avoid being deterred by ideas already on the market, I think of a quote from Scott Belsky’s book, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality: “To envision what it will be, you must remove yourself from the constant concern for what already is.” (Thanks to Jeff Kirsch for sharing this with me.)
One of my biggest concerns is the feeling of having not generated enough ideas based on my mounds of research. There is still underexplored territory in the space of meal planning and the actual instruction of meal preparation that I know to be essential to adopting good and longstanding nutrition habits. As I work through the next phase of ideation and viability, I plan on maintaining a sketching process to get these ideas onto paper, and I want to concentrate on narrowing a concept with the strengths of simplicity, clear visualizations, social support, and a continued positive tone that is focused on health and behaviors rather than on weight.
