Methods: Everybody’s doing it
by Amy JohannigmanDesign and innovation have become the hot topics and drivers of internal change within companies. Everyone is asking “How do I innovate?” and in return some designers have cheered “Methods!”. With methods on the forefront of everyone’s innovation list, many consultancies have begun to publish and sell their methods.
Method tools come in many shapes and sizes, here are a few to check out:
Cards:
IDEO published their set of 51 method cards in 2003 using the framework of “Learn, Look, Ask, Try”.
Nform developed a set of trading cards they have passed out during conferences that cover the areas of “Understand, Solve, Evaluate”.
Arup offers a deck of “Drivers of Change 2006” cards to explore the opportunities of “Social, Technology, Economic, Political” change.
Play and Games:
Recently at the LIFT Asia 2008 conference our very own Alexa presented “The Wonderful World of Make Believe” discussing play as a method of innovation.
Luke Hohmann wrote the book, Innovation Games in which he describes 12 games/ methods to play with your customers to better understand them.
MetaMemes developed Think Cube to facilitate collaborative innovation methods in a board game setting.
Online Resources:
The UK’s Design Council offers an online resource to a list of methods they recognize as being helpful in the design process.
The HCIDl, a part of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, offers a Design Methodolgy Wiki to the design community.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recognizes a set of common used methodologies under ISO 13407.
Methods Insights:
Hello, AP blog world- my name is Amy and I am one of the Summer Associates here at Adaptive Path. This summer I had the opportunity to spend some time thinking about methods and how they fit into the design community. Here are some insights I have concerning methods.
Method Tools can be Static
The landscape of methods has lifted a bevy of insights and issues. To begin the conversation, it has come to mind that method tools such as libraries, blogs and wikis are often static. We have yet to find a strong community around a method tool that fosters the content. It seems design firms, schools or practitioners often develop method libraries use them a few times but their vibrancy fades rather quickly. A laundry list of methods with descriptions is rarely a helpful resource for practitioners
The magic of methods surfaces when methods become a part of practice and understanding. Methods cannot live in a library but rather as essential tools within a practitioner’s toolbox.
Methods are only as good as the directions they point you in.
When faced with a project, choosing the right method is critical to the project’s success. Choosing the wrong method can mean insufficient data, or the wrong kind of data, lost time, and opportunity. Methods are a way to gain information, perspective, understanding, or context within a problem. It is important to choose the right method so that the resulting data can be actualized.
Choosing the right method can be confusing.
Often times Method tools (like method libraries) provide stages to categorize methods to help in this choice, however each tool offers a different framework. As a result, practitioners often abandon the method tool and instead consult past case studies or other practitioners to gain insight on a method’s ability.
Determining a method’s ability can involve consideration on several different axes, which can provide even further confusion. Some methods are more appropriate in the design stages, while other methods are more appropriate in collaboration with stakeholders but not during the design stages. With these considerations, the idea that methods can be categorized into specific stages seems to be false. Choosing a method requires assessing the symptoms. A problem is described by a set of symptoms and different methods can provide more insights into the problem or antidotes (depending on where in the project the method is applied, and what kind of method is used).
Methods relationship to frameworks.
With this being said, it can be seen that methods are not frameworks. The perception that methods are a means to an end is common among novice users. For this reason, some practitioners are often weary of method tools. Method tools can make methods seem like fix-alls and single stage actions. A better problem to solve may be solidifying the framework that surrounds your problem. Spending time properly scoping your design problem can lend a hand in using methods to their full capacity.
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September 28th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
This is a great summary, and the write-up at the end is particularly helpful. Picking the right method(s) for a particular design problem always seems to involve a bit of alchemy (at least for me).
Quick correction: nForm’s trading cards are at http://nform.ca/tradingcards
January 1st, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Innovation is really about thinking outside the box and that involves being different. Given employees freedom to work on personal projects can be very beneficial. It’s well known that companies such as Google provides a certain time per week for personal project work.