The Deep Dive

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 and .”

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 of how you 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?

-The team defines what the problem they are trying to solve and researched their product.

4. Give two examples of what the team members did during this phase.

a. They gathered information on the shopping cart and how it is designed.


b. They asked people on their opinions and how they feel about the shopping cart.

5. List five rules-of-thumb that IDEO employees follow when they share ideas during the brainstorming phase:

a. One conversation at a time
b. Stay focused
c. Encouraged wild ideas
d. Differ judgement
e. Build on the ideas of others

6. Why should wild (and sometimes crazy) ideas be entertained during the brainstorming phase?

- So that they can come up with more ideas and can come up with things that you probably wouldn't think of.

7. After the brainstorming phase was over, the team narrowed down the hundreds of ideas by voting for those ideas that were not only “cool” but also buildable in a short period of time. What phase of the design process is this called?

-This part of the design process is explore possibilities and to research and generate ideas.


8. IDEO believes that the ideas and efforts of enlightened trial and error 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?

-The design phase the groups were working on was to select an approach and to develop a design proposal, and to model and prototype their own ideas.


10. The leaders at IDEO believe that crazy and quirky behavior and a team 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?

-The design process that this applies to is refining and commucating 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?

They spent about 5 days working on the prototype.



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?

Test it out and see what improvements they can make with their products.



16. Of all the things that we are surrounded by every day, what has not been placed through the design process?

I can't really think of one material. Everything in our classroom has been through the design process. One thing, however, would be the air around us.


Conclusion

1. What did you find to be the most impressive part of the team’s effort?

How dedicated each group was and how much fun they were having.





2. What advantages are there to having a design team with members that have non-engineering backgrounds?

They can think of some great ideas that can come from other fields they have worked in.



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?


To come up with other ideas and to bring all these different ideas together once they are finished.




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?

Animals, plants, and fruit have been mixed so now we have different types of them.