For the next 5 weeks, we’re going to come up with an idea for a digital product/service and design an investor pitch, but first, why not go over what can be used to come up with an idea?
Mindmapping can be used for several things, such as generating, visualising, problem-solving and much more! Essantially, a mind map is quite a fast stratergy used to brainstorm ideas that radiates from a central problem.
Source: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/sites/default/files/docs/learningguide-mindmapping.pdf
Brain-storming is a group problem-solving method that involves spontaneous contribution of creative ideas and solutions. Due to Brain Storming being a collaborative activity, it also encourages discussion between the members of the group.
In many cases, brain storming includes post it notes, and it often leads to card sorting, which is another group activity, where the party can then discuss what has been brought up and then sorted to see what idea works best.
Source: https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/brainstorming
Coming up with ideas by collecting images and then making a moodboard out of it is also very common. A mood board allows you to collect throughts, ideas, colours and moods in one place to be able to define a choerent design concept, without risk of losing sight of the bigger picture in the project.
A lot of inspirations can also come from image sources, such as Google images and especially pinterest, since the application/website is designed to be a moodboard but with folders and amn algorithm that follows what you interact with.
Source: https://blog.sampleboard.com/5-reasons-why-mood-boards-essential-designers/
Sketching is a fast and efficent way to translate your thoughts into images, they’re quick, visual and easy to interpret. Plus if there is anything to add or remove, maybe change, it’s really easy to do.
When setting out your own project, it can be quite useful to make connections between different factors (i.e. Human need + Target Audience + Genre + Medium)
This might make it easier to make a realistic approach to a project, and also make it easier to know what to focus on.