Response to the IDEO video:
This video was about how the IDEO company took a shopping cart and redesigned it in five days. First of all that seems like a lot of work within just five days. I thought it was insane, but I guess with as many people as they had it could be possible. The video said the chaos was discouraged in companies and they needed to climb the corporate latter. A companies status was based on who designed better. One thing that was pointed out was that everything but nature has been deigned by a human being. Design is the nature between form and function. There is also a distinguished difference between design and invention, which I thought was really cool to hear. In the video IDEO said they created 90 new products a year that really amazed me. That's a lot for one year. In there process of designing the wheel chair I thought it was really cool how the group was made up of a variety of people with a wide range or majors. Like they had anyone from a psychologist to an industrial designer. They said in the video that doing research helps. You have to know your product. Social network works better than sitting at a desk. I totally agree with them. You have to find every situation possible in order to make sure you are designing the very best and putting it to its most potential. They also made a comment about how in the design world you cannot have a hierarchy in the group. Everyone has to be equal. I thought this was really cool, and I agree with it a hundred percent. People have to be able to share ideas. Everyone's idea is as good as the next persons. People in the group have to bounce ideas off each other to really get a good end result. Their rules were to "Build ideas off of other's, One idea at a time, and to stay on topic." We're now using these same rules in our class for this new project. Another form of advice I thought was cool was to encourage wild ideas. They said "Sane points wouldn't provide as good of ideas as there would be with wild ones." This is so typical designer talk and  I really liked the sea of it! I really liked the environment of their office too. A playful environment is more likely to give someone a fresh idea faster than just a boring work space. I really liked his quote "try something and ask for forgiveness instead of asking for permission first." It just shows that in design, some rules are meant to be broken. At the end of the video they showed the prototypes. I really like the one with the self scanner and the one with the radio to talk with the store people to ask them where things were. Their ideas were so creative. I really liked how with their final piece they took the best elements from each prototype and made a whole new one.
What design is is hard work, a lot of hours, teamwork, and creativity. Their Brainstorming techniques were cool. I think I will learn a lot from them. They were (1) understand market/client/technology and constraints, (2) observe real people in real situations, (3) visualize concepts and ultimate customers, (4) evaluate and refine prototypes, and (5) implement new concept for commercialization. I think it's really cool that we are using this concept and using it in our project to get a feel of how things like these will work in real life.
I am very excited for this project now after the class today. I thought this project might be boring, but I think it's going to be really fun now. Some of the ideas that we brought in were a hand-held massager, a door stopper, tongue scuppers, a floor scrubber, and a hand held dish scrubber. We decided to go with the dish scrubber. We came up with a million ideas right away and just flowed on that. we got a little crazy with it, which was a lot of fun. Everyone participated and had their own ideas of what we could do and went off of each others thoughts. It was a very productive class.