My Dream Application
Over the past few weeks, I’ve gone in depth on the topic of ideation and how it relates to the design thinking process. To further my knowledge of the topic, I’ve chosen to do a task where I conceptualize what for me would be a dream app, then use various ideation methods to further that idea. For me, my dream app would be a sort of centralized hub for any and all content related to fighting games.
The FGC Nexus
As the name implies, this app would be the central location for online interactions about fighting games. It would be similar to other content curation apps, with the ability to look up tools such as guides, frame data, combo videos, etc. I’ve always been a big fighting game fan, but felt the content both in the games and what the community produces is lacking, especially compared to other competitive video games like Dota or Counter Strike. This has helped spread the idea that fighting games are impossibly complicated and not worth the effort.
Knowing these issues, I tried to think of ideation methods that would help me put a lot of different methods out in the open. The first idea I went with was the “Worst Possible Idea” method. I felt this method would not only get my brain flowing with ideas, but with how many issues there are with online fighting game online content, I found it quite easy to think of some terrible ideas
My worst possible ideas, each paired with a better idea using a similar concept
Compared to other times I used this method though, I tried to expand upon it a little. To expand on it, I used Chuck Frey’s strategy for getting new ideas with this method “Once you’ve generated a list, challenge the group to turn those horrible ideas into good ones by either considering its opposite, or by finding some aspect within a terrible idea that can be used to inspire a good one.” As you can see in the image above, I took every terrible idea and found a counter to it. The main thing this helped me realize is how much of this app relies on very user friendly AI. Nearly every bad idea I came up with was some way to make the user’s experience far more miserable, which shows that even if everything else is working, a bad interface will ruin this app.
For my next method, I choose the provocative method. As Robert Riley of Thought Egg describes here “The purpose of the provocation is to forcibly cause your mind to move out of well worn mental tracks, allowing you to come up with potentially radical solutions to the problem at hand.” Most of the ideas filling my mind felt extremely basic, so I tried to use provocation as a way to come up with something more interesting.
This became a three step process, going from problem statement -> Provocation -> Solution
As provocation needs a specific problem to address, I came up with two different problems, applied a provocative solution, then manifested that into something more actionable. With this idea, I came up with what I felt was my favorite idea, which was a focus on training and honing reaction times. Fighting games can be difficult to learn, but at their most basic level they’re a test of reaction times. Knowing that, I felt one of the simplest ways to make users more comfortable with the games is to test and improve upon a simple, core idea of the game
Overall
The biggest strength ideation methods give you is a sense of structure. By limiting what you're allowed to think of, it actually ends up focusing your thoughts far more, causing your brain to flow more freely. It’s often like a balance of sorts. You can’t limit yourself too much or you can’t think of anything, but many times the key to letting the ideas flow is to put up a limitation of some kind.
