DESIGN
PORTFOLIO
De Bono 6 Hat
Six Thinking Hats is a simple, effective, parallel processing method that helps people to be productive, focused, and involved in analysis of ideas. The group can learn how to separate thinking into six clear functions and roles. Each thinking role is identified with a coloured "thinking hat." By mentally wearing and switching "hats," you can easily focus or redirect the analysis process, allowing the group to look at the concept in all lights.
I carried out this method in a group and individual environment. I put all 77 of the ideas I had collected through the ideation generation through this analysis technique, 21 through group analysis, and 56 individual. Due to our large group size this particular technique took a long time to carry out for each idea, so we made a conscious decision to try and go through at least 20 ideas in a group environment each. I found it more beneficial to go through the ideas in the group environment, with a bigger pot of thinkers to contribute to each emotion of the “hats”. The group environment reduced bias thinking from my part, as ideas I may have been subconsciously favouring would be scrutinised the same way as any other.
I found the Judgement, and Creativity hats the most beneficial in terms of sifting through ideas. The judgement allowing the group to realistically look at the idea, at this point you natural pull away from the “never say no” attitude, and critically come at the idea. This sifted the weak or poorly thought out ideas, and suited my more negative style of thinking. The creativity was useful, as it allowed the group to look at an idea and adapt it, improve it, or merge it with an existing idea. Almost immediately refining the idea, allowing me to envisage the concept, and the alternating development paths I could take in the design of the concept. Overall I found this analysis technique the most useful, finding the gems amongst the pebbles. After this analysis I had refined my selection of 77 to 24 concepts.
NUF
This analysis technique is a quick individual process to check if the idea is likely to work and be effective. They look at the idea in three separate aspects; is it new? Is it substantially different to pre-existing products? Is it useful? Does the idea solve the problem? Is it feasible? Can the idea be realistically put into practice? If it answers all these questions then the designer has a good idea he can take through to development sketches.
I found this technique helpful at adding another quick and analytical look at the 24 concepts I had left over from the De Bono analysis. This technique shows up any unoriginal ideas, getting down the serious aspects of each idea. Fleshing out some possible details of the idea. Forcing me to relate to pre-existing products, and how the concept improves on that. The feasible section was similar to the black hat in De Bono, allowing me to look at the product critically. Would that idea actually work in a game environment?Ideas such as Referee’s been given the force information through an earpiece, wouldn’t be feasible as it would involve overwhelming the ref with information, but I can then take a step back and alter aspects of the ideas. Only alerting the ref when a serious concussion occurs, reading out the number of the player, and what team there on into his earpiece. After this technique I had got down to 11 ideas.
Pugh's Matrixs
Pugh’s matrix is a group or individual analysis technique. Taking the designers existing URS, and setting it as the criteria for the matrix e.g. the product must protect the players head. A baseline is then set which you compare all your ideas too. The baseline in my case was a standard scrum cap. If the idea is better than the baseline at fulfilling the aspect of the criteria then it gets a tick, if its worse then it will receive a cross. This can be developed further by rating how much better/worse the idea meets that part of the criteria compared to the baseline out of 5 e.g. the idea is significantly lighter than a normal scrum cap, therefore 4/5 is given. To create a weighted and rated matrix, you add an importance to each URS point e.g. the product being light 10, the product sustainable 1. This number is then multiplied with the rating given by the idea. This gives a detailed and focused comparison of your final concepts.
With my final 11 concepts I carried out a simple Pugh’s matrix, and then developed into a weighted/rated matrix. I found the standard Pugh’s matrix little help, it distinguished some ideas as better than other but minimally. The ideas it identified where the ones I had already picked out myself as ones I could take forward. I needed something more concrete. It did however help me understand the process of the matrix making it much easier to carry out the weighted and rated matrix.
I used my existing URS as the criteria of both the matrix’s. In the weighted matrix I put high levels of weight on; the product must not reduce the user's pre-existing range of movement, the product must reduce the risk of head injury, and it must weigh less than or the same as conventional medical as not to be noticeable by the player. These three points of criteria had a weighting of 10/10, therefore were influential in the final decision making. This weighted system was far more useful, and I found really helped me make some final decisions on what three ideas to take forward. It removed all conceptual opinion from the decision making and turned it into a detailed statistical look at the ideas. The ideas that best fitted the URS got the highest scores, and realistically those are the ideas you want to be taking forward into sketching. The extra of multiplying concepts with high ratings in heavily weighted criteria gave them a much boosted score, which wouldn’t have been noticeable in the standard Pugh’s matrix.
The three ideas, that where highlighted from the weighted/rated matrix were; A lens that reads pupil dilation, a sensor that attaches to pre-existing GPS tracker system in the back of the players shirts, and a revamped scrum-cap with force sensors to monitor levels of force passing through the players.