Thinking aloud a tool for ideation

Speaking or saying out loud means to say what you are thinking, to verbalise aloud with your voice, as opposed to just thinking it. Although talking to ourselves out loud is sometimes frowned upon, hearing ourselves speak can help memory recall. Moreover, saying something out loud is not only a powerful cue to retrieve pre-existing ideas but can also help generate new ideas. The writer Heinrich Kleist of the Enlighenment era describes his habit of using speech as a thinking method and writes that active speech helps to turn the obscure thought into a whole idea. That is, it’s not thought that produces speech but, rather, speech is a mental process that in turn generates thought. Or, ideas come with speaking. Self-talk, then, or thinking aloud can be seen as an ideation tool. Reference: Kleist (1805). On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking. Ed. and Trans. by David Constantine. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2004).

The notion of workshop

While the ideation workshop is typically studio-based, this does not mean that workshop activity, or "ideation process" is exclusively taking place in a single physical space. Ideation, like design itself, is an iterative process, and so ideators typically thrive in flexible environments, or nomadic contexts, both physically and mentally. Indeed idea generation knows no borders and can happen anywhere. Yet the physical studio provides a convenient and effective creative space for the workshop facilitating the use and practice of a range of ideation tools. The studio also functions a social space for sharing the ideation experience. A such it can take place both indoors and outdoors. Indeed, the ideation workshop is not a narrow but an expansive notion and in moving from, say semi-private to public sphere may inspire and engage cooperative or communal approaches to ideation, such as placemaking.

Ideation interaction

Virtual platforms and video calls have become commonplace yet their queues of monologues cannot match the directness and rigour of in-person conversations, as exemplified by the ideation workshop. It is when the participants interact in the real studio, with the power to improvise and cross-talk that the creative juices start flowing and ideas spark. The in-person interaction electrifies the ideation process, forces the participants to think at pace and enriches the conversations from which the participants learn from each other. Virtual platform meetings may have their place in formal or business-like contexts but rarely sits comfortably in creative environments as virtual discussion can only superficially compensate for the full three-dimensional chemistry of face-to-face conversations. With the body language and all the tiny cues that form the visceral insights that come from in-the-flesh interactions missing, how to tell whether the participants are fully engaged in or really understand the ideas discussed?

Ideation learning

Ideation is a process of generating and communicating new ideas. It’s a process, not a single event, a process involving critical thinking as well as imagination. Ideation, then, is not just about having that “Aha!” moment, it is about being prepared for that moment, then knowing what to do when it happens. While the "Aha!" moment can happen anytime and anywhere, the ideation workshop encourages participants to use a range of ideation tools in a learning environment, a space set aside for creativity, typically the design studio. So ideation is also a learning process in using conceptual tools in order to better generate, articulate and express new ideas. But ideation is not about evaluating ideas. The real test of ideation lies in the ability to communicate ideas to another. That is, when you sketch out an idea from start to finish in simple visual/verbal language that even a child can understand (that is, a child with enough vocabulary and attention span to understand basic concepts and relationships), you force yourself to understand the concept at a deeper level and relationships and connections between ideas. In this way, the ideation workshop provides an opportunity to learn new skills and ways of thinking.

Ideation workshop as adventure

Setting time aside for ideation, and in an informal way, that is, focusing on generating ideas towards finding a solution for a given design problem, means opening up oneself to the adventurous practice of uncertainty. Adventure not in the sense of excitement associated with danger or a reckless action but rather an unusual or daring experience, to quote from OED as to the meaning of the word in English. Experiencing ideation, then, is to practise creativity purposefully, a process of going backwards and forwards drawing from past knowledge, observation and experience (memory) combined with present thoughts, skills and activities in order to generate new ideas, which run forward not backward. The adventure, then, lies in what was before and after, and what is the difference between the two. And the consequence of the difference should we pursue the idea towards realisation. Only the realisation of the idea, of making it happen, can overcome the uncertainty of the idea.

Mind the idea

The ideation workshop can be seen as a kind of mindfulness practice, that is, mindfulness as in focusing in the present moment, the here and now. Or, in a state of being aware, of noticing things, as in "if you are noticing things, you are mindful of them". And noticing things include first thoughts and ideas that pop up in our mind. Ideation, then, is mindfulness. And the ideation workshop mindfulness practice.

Sensory ideation

The workshop encourages creative activity that involves all the senses, that is, touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing. The workshop's hands-on sensory activities thus facilitate exploration and naturally encourage participant designers to use a range of ideation tools in order to create, experiment and explore. The workshop, then, in stimulating the senses, helps designers develop cognitively (creative thinking), linguistically (idea communication), socially (collaborative ideation), emotionally (emotional design) and physically (tool skills). Moreover, in this way, the workshop offers opportunity to engage all of the senses to explore ideas and concepts that might be too abstract to express without the tactile experience.