Transcript Generating Ideas

Generating Ideas for
Senior Projects
Objectives
 Identify advances and opportunities
 Generate ideas for an interesting senior project
Imagine Cup
 A competition for college students organized by Microsoft
 Would like to come up with an idea and use your senior project
to design and build a prototype
 Prizes + a trip to participate in the final competition
 Imaginecup.com
Identifying Opportunities:
Case Studies
Identifying Opportunities
 Google.com
 Early 2000s via https://archive.org/web/
 Why is it interesting/useful to you? What is the
value?
 Took advantage of what opportunities?
 Trends (existing or new ones)
 Pains
 Inefficiencies/gaps
Identifying Opportunities
 Raise.me

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/need-a-college-scholarship-theres-an-app-for-that/
 Why is it interesting/useful to you? What is the
value?
 Took advantage of what opportunities?
 Trends (existing or new ones)
 Pains
 Inefficiencies/gaps
Identifying Opportunities
 Choose an existing system/service/software/… that
is

most interesting/useful/… to you
 Why is it interesting/useful to you? What is the
value?
 Took advantage of what opportunities?
 Trends (existing or new ones)
 Pains
 Inefficiencies/gaps
Identifying Opportunities
 Choose an existing system/service/software/… that
is

most interesting/useful/… to you
 Why is it interesting/useful to you? What is the
value?
 Took advantage of what opportunities?
 Trends (existing or new ones)
 Pains
 Inefficiencies/gaps
 Group discussion: additional opportunities? [~4
students]
Reports from Groups
 Each group
 Decides the system that


took advantage of the most interesting/clever/… opportunities
Picks a representative to discuss:
1.
2.
3.
the system/software/service/…
created value
interesting/clever/… opportunities (trends, pains, inefficiencies)
Switching to Your Project
Generating Ideas--Homework
 Identify opportunities:
 Trends (existing or new ones),
 Pains, and/or
 Inefficiencies/gaps
 Ask 3 users if they feel similar pains…
 Generate ideas to create value
 Ask 3 users if the proposed ideas help
 [Other competitions:
 cs.fit.edu/~pkc/classes/seniorProjects/opportunities ]
Preparing Slides--Homework
 What are the opportunities/pains? [at least 1 slide]
 Do 3 users feel similar pains? [1 slide per user]
 What are your main ideas to improve & create value?
[at least 1 slide]
 Do 3 users think your ideas create value?
 If not, what are other ideas? [brainstorming with users]
 [1 slide per idea with feedback from 3 users]
Design Thinking Process (Stanford)
 EMPATHIZE:


Work to fully understand the experience of the user for whom you
are designing.
Do this through observation, interaction, and immersing yourself in
their experiences.
 DEFINE:

Process and synthesize the findings from your empathy work in
order to form a user point of view that you will address with your
design.
 IDEATE:

Explore a wide variety of possible solutions through generating a
large quantity of diverse possible solutions, allowing you to step
beyond the obvious and explore a range of ideas.
 Prototype and Test
 http://dschool.stanford.edu/redesigningtheater/the-design-thinking-process/
Day 2
FEEDBACK AND REFINEMENT OF IDEAS
Feedback and Refinement—Group Discussion
(~4 students, ie, ~3 additional users)
 What are the opportunities/pains? [at least 1 slide]
 Do 3 users feel similar pains? [1 slide per user]
 What are your main ideas to improve & create value?
[at least 1 slide]
 Do 3 users think your ideas create value?
 If not, what are other ideas? [brainstorming with users]
 [1 slide per idea with feedback from 3 users]
Reports from Groups
 Each group
 selects the project that has the most potential
 presents the project to the class

More feedback and refinement
Other Projects
 Besides self-proposed projects that need my
approval

Approved projects from
other departments
 Florida Tech faculty
 projects from outside Florida Tech
