Harnessing People's Creativity: Ideation and Expression through Visual Communication

Abstract

The people who buy and use the products we create are not typically invited to play in the fuzzy front-end of the development process because it is commonly believed that they are not creative. But participation early in the front-end is needed to drive truly humancentered product development. We have learned how to harness the creativity of potential end-users very early in the development process. The research methods in this chapter explore not only what people say and do, but also what people make. The say methods are rooted in verbal communication and are used in situations such as traditional focus groups. Methods such as applied ethnography focus on what people do through direct or indirect observation. The make methods are unique in their ability to elicit creative expression from everyday people. This chapter describes and shows examples of “make” toolkits we use to elicit creative thinking from people who will buy and use future products and services. It also outlines how all the methods (say and do and make) are used together in order to fully understand people’s past, present as well as anticipated experiences with products and services.