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Brainstorming

Activity 1: Idea Explosion 

(10 minutes)

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If you could create a website about anything in the world, what would you create? Would you create a portfolio website to post your artwork, stories, or videos you’ve made? A game website with instructions for playing your favorite games? A Club website with information about your Club and Club events? An informative website about your favorite topic? An entrepreneurial website about a business you’d like to start? A blog about your interests or events in your community? Think about which websites you like the most or which problems a new website could solve. Is there an idea for a website that you wish existed?

 

Let’s get all of your ideas out of your brain and written down. Here are a few options:

  • If you have a stack of sticky notes, write one idea per sticky note. This is a great way to do a brain-write if you’re working with a group, because you’ll be able to move your sticky notes around when it’s time to compare ideas.

  • If you prefer a list, jot your ideas down on paper but leave some space between each idea in case you want to cut them apart and rearrange the ideas on a table.

  • If the room you’re in has a whiteboard or chalk board, write your ideas on the board so that you (or you and your teammates) will be able to look at the range of ideas.

 

Ready set a timer for three minutes and write down all your ideas for a website that would be fun to design.


Try a “brain-write” and write down all of the different options you can think of for a website. They don’t all need to be good ideas, just write down anything that comes to mind. When you’ve written for a few minutes, you could ask a few friends which ideas they like, or you could pick the idea that seems most exciting to you.

Activity 2:Cluster and Rank 

(10 minutes)

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If you’re working in a group, now is your chance to hear each person’s ideas. Ask each group member to read his or her ideas aloud. Once every idea has been heard, “cluster” the ideas that are similar by placing them in a pile, connecting them on the whiteboard, or otherwise grouping them.

 

If you’re working by yourself, grab a friend and explain your ideas or read through them again and look for similar ideas that you could “cluster” or group together. Once you’ve clustered similar ideas, try to rank your #1, #2, and #3 favorite ideas.

 

Choose the one idea that you feel most excited about for your website. For the rest of this project, focus on that one favorite idea.

Activity 3: Barn-raising 

(10 minutes)

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The point of Brainstorming is to come up with a lot of ideas, but the point of Barnraising is to build up one idea. This term comes from the 18th century when a community would all come together to “raise” or build one neighbor’s barn. When a community focuses on one task together, they can build a stronger barn than any single person. Then, they can move on to the next neighbor’s barn and help him.

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Activity 4: 

(10 minutes)

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Summarize your ideas by writing notes, taking pictures, or filming a short video of yourself explaining some of the ideas you came up with. You don't want to forget these ideas before you start building your website. However you decide to record and remember your ideas, send in your notes, video, photos, etc. to BGCAmediamaking@gmail.com 

 

 

Still Interested? Take a look at these resources: 

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Design Thinking Agency: https://www.ideo.com/

Toolkit: http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/

Want to learn Design Thinking from the Pros? Take this one hour course from the Stanford Design School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FzFk3E5nxM

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What You'll Need: 

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Generate ideas for your Website 

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You’re obviously not about to build a barn, but you can get a group together to build up your idea for a website.

 

Here’s one way to do that:

  • Gather a few friends.

  • Explain your idea and explain that you want their help building up your idea.

  • Encourage your group to use “Yes, and” language to jump into the conversation. For example, if you say: “I want to build a website that shows off the art we make at the Club” a great response would be “Yes, and you could pick one piece of art to be the masterpiece of the week”

  • If your group is sort of quiet, you could ask specific ideas like:

    • What could the title of my website be?

    • What types of pictures or videos should I include?

    • What colors would be good for my site?

    • Other than the homepage, what additional webpages should I make?

    • If you were using this website, what would you want to be able to do on the site?

Try doing these modules in order: 

Design Thinking > Brainstorming > WireFraming > Design a Webpage

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