References
A curated collection of people, companies, books, websites, and resources that have directly and indirectly inspired UX Frameworks and us as designers.
Synthesis
Synthesis is the sensemaking that happens between design phases. Designers should always be synthesizing data, content, and design– but formally, this effort usually happens after research when developing insights.
Affinity Diagramming
The organizational process of discerning explicit and implicit relationships between data. An attempt to identify patterns by combining and grouping data either by logic or intuition. If possible, it should be done with another teammate, externalizing the rationale for placing data where.
Interpreted Data
Research data that has transformed through inference. The designer begins manipulating data collected from research– finding commonalities, creating themes, making assumptions, and developing insights as an attempt to meaning out of ambiguity.
Sensemaking
Sensemaking is the designers attempt to make sense and meaning out of ambiguity. It's the synthesis process in design.
Synthesis
Synthesis is the most critical part of the creative process. It's the sensemaking that happens between design phases, an attempt to make meaning of ambiguity. Designers should always be synthesizing data, content, and design– but formally, this happens usually after qualitative research when developing insights.
Themes
Themes are hidden patterns that emerge through an affinity between data points, collected during research. Themes bubble up into insight statements.They are usually short and memorable.
Ideation
Ideation is the phase of design where designers brainstorm ideas around a given opportunity or impact. This can be a very narrow, focused session or open-ended. The ideal output of an ideation session are concepts that can move the project forward.
Convergent Thinking
Convergent thinking attempts to find the best, most obvious and appropriate solution to the problem during ideation.
Convergent ideas:
✨ Generated through a [yes, but] process 👎
✨ Easy to present & convince stakeholders
✨ Logical, familiar and safe
Divergent Thinking
Divergent thinking attempts to explore what could be through blue sky thinking, generating a lot of ideas and suspending judgment until later on in the process.
Divergent ideas:
✨ Are original and unexpected
✨ Riskier and unpredictable
✨ Generated through play & curiosity
Ideation
Ideation is the effort of coming up with ideas around a given opportunity or impact. The ideal output of ideation are concepts that can move the project forward.
Innovation
Innovation is the process of generating and executing on new ideas that reinvents a method, product, or service. Innovative ideas can be small or significant – but always create value to meaningful problems.
Visualization
Visualization makes concrete what was before, just an idea. It's a method of externalizing content into something tangible that can be shared, stored, and critiqued. As designers, we should constantly be visualizing concepts and ideas.
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