ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
© 2007, IIT Institute of Design. All rights reserved. Our sincerest thanks to all the ID faculty and students who agreed to have their work represented in this collection. Poster designed by Peter Laundy with Waewwan Sitthisathainchai (MDes 2007). Photo of value web and cover photo of Doug by Mark Jospeh.
About the Institute of Design
About the Institute of Design’s methods
know users
frame insights
About design methods
know context
tel 312.595.5900 fax 312.595.4901 www.id.iit.edu
Since its founding as the New Bauhaus in 1937, the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology has grown into the largest full-time graduate-only design program in the U.S., with over 125 students from around the world.
Method development is an explicit goal of the Institute of Design. Our faculty and students refine and develop processes, frameworks, tools and theories that give designers a rigorous and rational foundation for their work. We’ve been at this for over 50 years, and many methods developed here are in use by designers around the globe.
analysis
realization
synthesis
explore concepts
350 North LaSalle Street Chicago, Illinois 60610 USA
While design always has and always will involve the insight and inventiveness of talented individuals (and their muses), design methods improve the odds of success. This is increasingly true as design projects involve more disciplines and participants, as design solutions become more complex and comprehensive, as clients seek bolder breaks from current offerings, and as designers are asked to ser ve increasingly diverse and unfamiliar audiences.
sense intent
The seven-mode process used in this communication to structure our methods is a refinement of the process in the Innovation Planning Toolkit, developed by Vijay Kumar at the Institute of Design.
The school offers professional Master of Design degrees in communication design, design planning, design research, and product design; a dual Master of Design / MBA degree program with the IIT Stuart School of Business; and the Master of Design Methods, a nine-month executive program in design methods for innovation. ID created the country’s first Ph.D. design program in 1991, helping pioneer the development of an international community of basic research in design methods.
research
frame solutions
make plans
Design starts with project and
Projects that involve inventing
Opportunities and constraints
Ethnographic methods, adapted
Collected data needs to be distilled
Insights may suggest a wide variety
Here generative idea development
Plans are developed to secure
problem definition, then proceeds
something new and different start
exist inside client organizations,
from anthropology, can spot
to be of value for design. Methods
of concepts involving new products,
and evaluative concept feedback
approval for funding, assemble a
through research, to analysis of
with getting an intuitive, provisional
industries and societies. It pays
latent user needs that are hard
for data clustering and organization
services, brands, environments,
are combined to create stories
development team and move the
the research, to identification of
sense of where new value lies and
to understand client capabilities
to discover using typical market
yield patterns that can be expressed
communications, interfaces, and
about one or more possible futures.
concept into realization. The plan
key insights, to the synthesis of
how to find it.
and orthodoxies, competitor
research methods like surveys
in frameworks; design principles can
even business models. Disciplined
They are typically illustrated with
typically includes framed insights,
concepts, and finally to realization
strengths and weaknesses,
and focus groups.
also be derived from data to guide
methods in this mode can increase
diagrams of the idea and prototypes
concept descriptions, concept
of designs. Throughout the process,
and innovation agendas and
concept development.
brainstorming effectiveness and
conveying the value proposition and
illustrations and road maps.
we have identified seven distinct
societal trends.
selection of final concepts.
customer experience.
Methods
process modes
The methods shown are from an ongoing collection compiled by ID graduate students, led by Professor Kumar and Vincent LaConte.
definition
modes or ways of acting and thinking, described here. The process is linear in one sense: it begins with definition and ends with realization. However, it is also highly iterative, as suggested by the arrows. Learning as we go, we
Selected methods:
Selected methods:
Selected methods:
Selected methods:
Selected methods:
Selected methods:
Selected methods:
Trend Matrix
Era Analysis
Disposable Camera Study
Activity Structuring
Insights To Innovations
Concept Manager
Business Concepts Framework
Innovation Diagnostics
Value Web
Ethnographic Interview
Insight Matrix
Concept Matrix
Scenario Planning
Value Proposition
Concept Space Framing
Innovation Landscape
User Insights Tool
Position Mapping
Concept Prototypes
Planning Hierarchy
Planning Roadmap
Insights to Innovations
Concept evaluation
often identify new roadblocks and opportunities, requiring a few steps back before moving forward.
method example
know context
Value Web Diagramming
On the right are two value webs
diagram that illuminates an existing or
developed in a student project
proposed business ecosystem. Unlike a
for Gold Peak Industries, a Hong
value chain, it represents complex and
Kong-based lighting and electrical
interwoven relationships, depicts the
equipment manufacturer.
value (money, goods, services) exchanged
The top value web shows the current
between entities, and identifies which
Methods
A value web is a value-provider relationship
market situation, and identifies key
relationships are most important, helping us
problems in the value web where design
understand what is exchanged among key
interventions could help. The bottom
players.
diagram illustrates a proposed new value web that would create a new business for Gold Peak and a better experience for end users.
Developed by: Doblin Inc. and the IIT Institute of Design Taught in: Design Planning Workshop, Strategic Design Planning Course, Research & Demonstration Project Diagram created by: Lucas Daniel (MDes 2005)
methods used in combination
User-Insights Driven Innovation
Disposable Camera Study
Together, this set of methods quickly
User Insights Tool
Disposable cameras are given to selected
All observations are entered into the User
Using this method, design principles are
From this point, a variety of concept
users, along with guidelines for photographing
Insights Tool (see image below) and organized
derived from insight clusters, and used to
evaluation methods can be employed to
their daily activities in a given area of interest.
under the POEMS framework for easy analysis.
inform concept development. For example,
narrow the field of solutions and focus on
insights in the cluster ‘assuming the role of
which directions to develop or pursue in
host’ might lead to a design principle that
greater depth.
turns user data into insights, and insights
POEMS
into concepts. Shown here is work from a
Insights Matrix
student project focusing on party
This process uses the ‘POEMS’ framework,
The Insights Matrix is used to cluster lists of
planning services.
which organizes examples into the categories
insights, which may include over 100 items.
of People, Objects, Environments, Messages/
Clusters are graphically depicted and named
Media, and Services.
(In the context of ‘entertaining at home’, for
‘Hosts should be able to participate deeply in party activities.’
example, clusters might include planning a
Ethnographic Interview
Developed by: Vijay Kumar and Patrick Whitney, IIT Institute of Design Taught in: Design Analysis, Design Synthesis, Strategic Design Research, Observing Users, Research & Demonstration Project
party theme, preparing the home, and assuming the role of host.)
Later, ethnographic interviews are conducted with the user about the photographs, and carefully structured notes are taken. Initial insights and user needs are developed.
Objects
Using this cluster of methods, the student team developed the “You Times Two” (Ux2) party planning service concept. It helps people plan for a party, shop, deliver and prepare food.
Media
People
Environments Services Concepts created by: Alexa Curtis, Douglas Look, Douglas Wills, and Taylor Lies (graduate students Fall 2005).
sense intent definition
know context
know users research
frame insights analysis
explore concepts
frame solutions synthesis
make plans realization