Exploring Ideas - Sketching

"Design is practical imagination: Imagining possibilities and making them real."

--Matias Duarte

Design problems rarely have only one solution. Basic human needs, such as sitting comfortably, have been approached in many different ways throughout history. These diverse solutions include different kinds of products such as couches and chairs, and they also include many variations of each of those products.

The diversity in the design of a chair illustrates that there is more than one solution to our problem of sitting comfortably (source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bygenejackson/3112404581/)

Designing great user experiences requires you to explore a wide set of possibilities. From the general idea of your app to the smallest details of each screen, each problem can be solved in many different ways. Approaching each design decision with...

Adopting the sketching mindset

Sketching is a common technique used to visualize your ideas and help you think about them. It forces you to transform the abstract idea present in your mind into a more concrete and tangible form that captures its essence. This process helps you to consider how your solution may be used by your target users and whether it fulfills the different design goals.

Pen and paper are the most commonly used tools for sketching. The simplicity of these tools is ideal to focus on capturing your ideas and iterating them quickly. They also represent a very low entry barrier to the sketching process. You can sketch anywhere, alone or with other people.

Sketch by Jack Dorsey capturing his initial ideas for a micro-blogging service named stat.us, which later became Twitter (source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jackdorsey/182613360/)

Sketching takes advantage...

Producing results fast

When sketching, you will want to move quickly through the design space. Avoid getting lost in the details; adding limits to your time can help you to keep a fast exploration pace.

Adjusting your focus

While sketching, you should skip anything that is not essential to move faster. Focus on the main elements of your idea or those elements that add relevant context to provide clarity.

Identify the problem you need to solve with exploration clearly; this will help you to avoid getting lost in the details that are irrelevant or that you can address later. Before you start the exploration, it is better to write the following:

• You can write the problem statement. Phrasing your problem as an open question is...

Organizing your exploration

Ideas may occur at any time--a brilliant idea may surprise you while in the shower, during a walk in the forest, or while sleeping. However, your sketching process should not rely on good ideas to randomly appear; you should look for them.

As you organize your exploration better, you will not only get more ideas to explore but also cover the space of possibilities better, reducing the chances of missing interesting ideas.

Design exploration sessions are not like brainstorming exercises. While brainstorming usually involves many people speaking their ideas out loud as they come to mind, a design exploration normally involves participants exploring many possibilities silently in an organized way, for them to be shared with others later.

Decomposing your problem...

Communicating your ideas

When ideas are discussed in the abstract, it is very possible for different people to interpret them differently enough to create misunderstandings. By capturing ideas in a more specific way--using sketches, for example--we can help to avoid misunderstandings. Sketches are very useful to communicate ideas, but they are not going to do it by themselves.

Capturing a good design solution in a sketch and sharing it is not enough; you need to communicate fully. The best solution for a problem is useless if it never gets built, and you'll need to convince many people along the way:

• Other designers with feedback on how to improve your design
• People building the product, thinking how to turn the idea into reality
• Decision-makers such as your client or your manager, considering whether the solution will fit in their budget
• Users sharing their opinions on...

Being pragmatic

Capturing and discussing ideas through sketching improves your designs. However, you need to make an effort to keep the process productive. Here are some considerations to speed up your exploration of ideas.

The perfect is the enemy of the good

Your sketches should not be intended to be presented at a museum. Sketches look unfinished because they capture evolving, unpolished ideas. You can spend time making sketches reflect your idea better--adding annotations and even highlighting some elements--but you should spend no time on purely aesthetic or style considerations.

If you are a perfectionist, you'll need to practice being comfortable with lines not being straight. You need to remember that moving fast...

Summary

In this chapter, we introduced sketching as a powerful tool to explore possible solutions for a given design problem. We provided guidance on how to produce results fast while also keeping your exploration organized so that you can find innovative ideas.

In addition to idea generation, we provided advice on how to present and discuss your ideas based on your sketches. This will allow you to act on the audience's feedback and improve your ideas.

The next chapter introduces mobile patterns for you to consider as reusable solutions that are recommended for each mobile platform. Knowing common building blocks on mobile platforms can help you to solve recurring problems in ways that are familiar to your users.