Ideation is the initial stage of the design process. It is the process of generating and exploring ideas and concepts through rough drawing named sketches.
It’s important to keep in mind that the purpose of sketching is not to identify a solution but rather to explore as many ideas and alternatives as possible. In this context, sketches are a flexible and quick way to confront visually ideas inside a team. They found their place during the ideation process but can be used at any point of the design process. In most cases, They are not good enough to present to clients.
They offer different advantages:
- a pen and a sheet of paper are the only tools you really need. You should prefer markers to pencils to remind you that there is no place for details,
- quick to make and easy to review with team members,
- no need to have drawing skills, only concepts matter at this stage,
- they are fast to make and easy to dispose,
- ideas captured in this form are quite abstract and so rejecting them or simply critiquing is much easier than rejecting ideas that have been refined over hours,
- they are not final solution, so we don’t care about quality,
- the low fidelity of sketching encourages experimentation,
- sketches make the team focus on structure and functionnality rather than visual and aesthetic details,
- makes changes is less difficult and expensive that it could be with wireframes or worst mockups and protoypes.
The process can last from few hours to severals days. Sharing the process over severals days is a good idea to give the brain some break and let the subconscious do its job. You can work alone but it is more effective to do it with others team members to get more feedback.
Think to finish what you have started before jumping to another idea. It’s a common mistake and it’s important to sketch out important ideas rather than constantly creating and rejecting them in your mind hoping they could be better. At the end of day, you risk to get a bunch of unfinished sketches that do not really fit the initial ideas and put you in a bad mood.
37 signals shares different sketch styles of their designers here.
Mots-clefs : sketching, wireframing
