Twenty Essential
Ideation Techniques
Idea generation is at the heart of the design thinking process, we’ll take you through 20 of the
most essential ideation techniques so you can start to incorporate them into your design process.
Visit the Interaction Design Foundation for more detailed information.
01
Brainstorm
Leverage the synergy of your group and
build on each other’s ideas to generate
new ones—encourage the use of the
slogan “1+1=3” and help people be
fearless within certain constraints.
05
Worst Possible Challenge
Idea Assumptions
Ask the team to come up with the worst
possible idea. This inverts criticism &
anxiety, and enables playfulness.
09
Storyboards
Storyboards bring a situation to life by
developing a sequential, visual story
that relates to the problem, design or
solution. They are a key medium for
communicating and building empathy.
13
SCAMPER
This technique asks seven questions
to stimulate new ideas: Substitute,
Combine, Adapt, Modify (or Magnify and
Minify), Put to another use, Eliminate,
and Reverse.
17
Crowdstorm
This technique involves the target
audience. They can help generate,
comment on and approve ideas, via
social media, customer surveys, focus
groups and co-design workshops.
Key Generation Selection
Start Learning Today:
interaction-design.org
Creative Commons BY-SA license: You are free to edit and redistribute this template, even for commercial use, as long as you give credit to the Interaction Design Foundation.
Also, if you remix, transform, or build upon this template, you must distribute it under the same CC BY-SA license.
02
Braindump
Done individually, participants write
their ideas down on sticky notes and
share them with the group at a later
stage, allowing less-vocal participants
to free up their mind.
06
Take a step back and ask important
questions about assumptions to escape
paradigms and reboot a session.
10
Bodystorm
Participants physically act out the
situations and seek to innovate within
them to express solutions. The exercise
helps increase energy and make things
real while exploring the experience.
14
Movement
This tool will help remove mental
roadblocks by using lateral thinking
to spot themes, principles, useful
attributes and trends, which you can
then use to build up viable ideas.
18
Co-Creation
These workshops can rapidly combine
user research, ideation, and prototyping
to expedite the design process with
involvement of the target community.
Implementation
03
Brainwrite
Participants write their ideas down on
paper and, after a few minutes, pass
their piece of paper to subsequent
participants to elaborate further.
Afterwards, discuss the elaborations.
07
Mindmap
Graphical technique where participants
build a web of relationships between
facts and ideas. Writing solutions and
ideas that spring to mind around the
core idea or problem statement.
11
Analogies
Analogies involve appropriately
comparing two things. They are a great
way for you to build empathy with
your users, to synthesize and define
information and spark new ideas.
15
Gamestorm
A set of ideation and problem-solving
methods that is purposely gamified
to dramatically increase levels of
engagement, energy and collaboration
during group sessions.
19
Prototypes
Prototypes provide a great opportunity
to reveal new solutions to problems, and
to test whether or not the implemented
design solutions will be successful.
Team Solo Gamified
04
Brainwalk
Similar to brainwriting, participants
walk around the room and continuously
find new “ideation stations” where they
can elaborate on other participants’
ideas and keep the energy levels up.
08
Sketches
Participants express their ideas and
potential solutions in the form of rough
sketches. Sketches allow you to quickly
explore and discard ideas and concepts.
12
Provocation
Provocations challenge the status quo
and provide a mechanism to inject
unconventional thinking patterns into
the exploration process. They provide
the context for new ideas to be formed.
16
Cheatstorm
Cheatstorming is not so much about
coming up with new ideas as it is about
taking an existing pool of ideas and
leveraging them as input or stimuli to
avoid previous ideas from going to waste.
20
Creative
Pauses
Step back, reflect, and re- approach the
challenge constructively with a renewed,
refreshed and reinvigorated mind.
Physical Visual Creative Unblockers
Twenty Essential
Ideation Techniques
Idea generation is at the heart of the design thinking process, we’ll take you through 20 of the
most essential ideation techniques so you can start to incorporate them into your design process.
Visit the Interaction Design Foundation for more detailed information.
01
Brainstorm
Leverage the synergy of your group and
build on each other’s ideas to generate
new ones—encourage the use of the
slogan “1+1=3” and help people be
fearless within certain constraints.
05
Worst Possible Challenge
Idea Assumptions
Ask the team to come up with the worst
possible idea. This inverts criticism &
anxiety, and enables playfulness.
09
Storyboards
Storyboards bring a situation to life by
developing a sequential, visual story
that relates to the problem, design or
solution. They are a key medium for
communicating and building empathy.
13
SCAMPER
This technique asks seven questions
to stimulate new ideas: Substitute,
Combine, Adapt, Modify (or Magnify and
Minify), Put to another use, Eliminate,
and Reverse.
17
Crowdstorm
This technique involves the target
audience. They can help generate,
comment on and approve ideas, via
social media, customer surveys, focus
groups and co-design workshops.
Key Generation Selection
Start Learning Today:
interaction-design.org
Creative Commons BY-SA license: You are free to edit and redistribute this template, even for commercial use, as long as you give credit to the Interaction Design Foundation.
Also, if you remix, transform, or build upon this template, you must distribute it under the same CC BY-SA license.
02
Braindump
Done individually, participants write
their ideas down on sticky notes and
share them with the group at a later
stage, allowing less-vocal participants
to free up their mind.
06
Take a step back and ask important
questions about assumptions to escape
paradigms and reboot a session.
10
Bodystorm
Participants physically act out the
situations and seek to innovate within
them to express solutions. The exercise
helps increase energy and make things
real while exploring the experience.
14
Movement
This tool will help remove mental
roadblocks by using lateral thinking
to spot themes, principles, useful
attributes and trends, which you can
then use to build up viable ideas.
18
Co-Creation
These workshops can rapidly combine
user research, ideation, and prototyping
to expedite the design process with
involvement of the target community.
Implementation
03
Brainwrite
Participants write their ideas down on
paper and, after a few minutes, pass
their piece of paper to subsequent
participants to elaborate further.
Afterwards, discuss the elaborations.
07
Mindmap
Graphical technique where participants
build a web of relationships between
facts and ideas. Writing solutions and
ideas that spring to mind around the
core idea or problem statement.
11
Analogies
Analogies involve appropriately
comparing two things. They are a great
way for you to build empathy with
your users, to synthesize and define
information and spark new ideas.
15
Gamestorm
A set of ideation and problem-solving
methods that is purposely gamified
to dramatically increase levels of
engagement, energy and collaboration
during group sessions.
19
Prototypes
Prototypes provide a great opportunity
to reveal new solutions to problems, and
to test whether or not the implemented
design solutions will be successful.
Team Solo Gamified
04
Brainwalk
Similar to brainwriting, participants
walk around the room and continuously
find new “ideation stations” where they
can elaborate on other participants’
ideas and keep the energy levels up.
08
Sketches
Participants express their ideas and
potential solutions in the form of rough
sketches. Sketches allow you to quickly
explore and discard ideas and concepts.
12
Provocation
Provocations challenge the status quo
and provide a mechanism to inject
unconventional thinking patterns into
the exploration process. They provide
the context for new ideas to be formed.
16
Cheatstorm
Cheatstorming is not so much about
coming up with new ideas as it is about
taking an existing pool of ideas and
leveraging them as input or stimuli to
avoid previous ideas from going to waste.
20
Creative
Pauses
Step back, reflect, and re- approach the
challenge constructively with a renewed,
refreshed and reinvigorated mind.
Physical Visual Creative Unblockers