Class 3:

Ideation Phase: Synthesis

3
Ideation Phase: Synthesis

INSPIRATION IDEATION IMPLEMENTATION

The Design Process

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 Class 3:
Ideation Phase: Synthesis

Table Of Contents

Class 3
Ideation Phase: Synthesis

Readings
Overview of Ideation Phase
Synthesis
Step 1: Capture Your Learnings
Step 2: Search for Meaning
Step 3: Create “How Might We” Questions

Case Study: Moneythink Mobile

Methods in Action

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INSPIRATION IDEATION IMPLEMENTATION

Overview of Ideation Phase: Synthesis

The Ideation phase transforms your research into
meaningful and actionable insights that will become
the foundation of your design.

You’ll begin by making sense of what you’ve learned

from your design research—drawing from everything
you observed and heard from the people you’re
designing for. Then, you’ll identify key themes and
insights that will help you define opportunities for
design that are differentiated and generative.

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Synthesis: Turn Learnings into

Opportunities for Design
The Ideation phase begins with synthesis, one of the most challenging parts of the human-centered
design process. It often takes an IDEO.org design team several weeks minimum to translate learnings
into opportunities. For the sake of the time limitations of this course, we have streamlined the synthesis
piece of Ideation into a few steps that your team can conduct over the course of a few hours during
your workshop. Here’s a glance at how your learnings will eventually evolve into ideas that you can take
forward into the second major part of the Ideation phase—prototyping.

Synthesis Process

Learnings Themes Insights How Might We’s Ideas

Learnings are the Themes are created after Insights are a succinct “How Might We” Ideas are generated
recollections of what you have organized expression of what you questions are the during a brainstorming
stood out during the stories from your have learned from your starting point for a session. Ideas can be
a conversation or field research into field research activities. brainstorming session. practical and simple or
observation: direct categories. Did you Insights offer a new How Might We questions wild and crazy (like the
quotes, anecdotes, hear similar statements perspective, even if they are written in direct hypothetical delivery
notes on sounds, smells, or observations from are not new discoveries. response to an insight. drone in the example
textures, colors, etc. multiple people? Themes They are inspiring These questions feel above, which could make
Learnings should be are the headlines for and relevant to your optimistic and exciting low-cost fruit deliveries
communicated in full clusters of similar challenge. and should help you in small quantities to
sentences to capture learnings. think of new ideas multiple locations in
the story. You’ll capture quickly. a neighborhood). All
learnings as your judgment is deferred
team recounts what during a brainstorm, as
they observed during the goal is to come up
research. with as many ideas as
possible. Ideas are best
communicated with
quick sketches.

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Step 1: Capture Your Learnings

During your research you talked to many people and were inspired by immersing yourself in
their contexts. Now that you’re back with your design team and starting the Ideation phase,
it’s time to talk about what you’ve learned.

IDEATION Set Up a Space to Download research. If possible, print out some of the
Before you begin downloading, you’ll want photos you took and using them to illustrate
to make sure you’re in a room with plenty of your stories. Follow the prompts below
wall space or boards to post your learnings. when deciding what information to capture.
Distribute Post-it notes (or their equivalent)
and markers to the whole team. It may also Share Inspiring Stories
This Gets You be helpful to have large sheets of paper and Tell the most compelling stories from the
A deeper contextual tape to attach these sheets to the wall. field to your teammates. Try to be both
understanding shared by specific (talking about what actually
your entire team. Download Your Learnings happened) and descriptive (using physical
After weeks of design research in the senses to give texture to the description).
Keep in Mind
Inspiration phase, you’ve probably got a Report on who, what, when, where, why,
Tell stories person by
person, one at a time.
huge amount of notes, photos, impressions, and how. And then invite each of your
Use vivid details, direct and quotes. Now it’s time to start making teammates to share their own inspiring
quotes whenever you sense of them! Take turns pouring key stories. The goal is to build a repository
can, and describe your information out of your head and onto of stories for your team to draw from, tell,
immediate experiences. Post-its. Spend time on each individual you and retell. Capturing those resonant ideas
This is not the time to met and each place you visited. Be specific and feelings, and building them into the
generalize or judge. when discussing what actually happened, very narrative of your team’s work will help
and revisit the notes you took during your everyone down the line.

WHAT SHOULD YOU CAPTURE?

• Personal Details:
details: who
Whodid
didyou
youmeet?
meet?(profession,
(profession,age,
age,location,
location,etc)
etc)

• Interesting Stories:
stories: what’s
What’sthe
themost
mostmemorable
memorableor
orsurprising
surprisingstory
thingthey
they
told you?

• Motivations: What
what did
did this
this participant
participant care
care about
about the
the most?
most? What
What motivates
motivates
him/her?

• Barriers: What
what frustrated
frustrated him/her?
him/her?

• Interactions: What
what was
was interesting
interesting about
about the
the way
way he/she
he/she interacted
interacted with
with
his/her environment?

•R
 emaining Questions: What
what questions
questions would
would you
you like
like to
to explore
explore ifif you
you had
had
another conversation with this person?

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HERE ARE SOME HELPFUL TIPS FOR A DESIGN TEAM DOWNLOAD...

• Actively Listen: While you are listening to each • Display Your Notes: You will want to write large
other, compare and contrast the things you have enough so that everyone can read your notes. Your
learned. Explore areas where you find different team will put all Post-its up on the wall, organizing
opinions and contradictions. Begin to look for them into separate categories for each person that
recurring themes. your team interviewed and each place that your team
visited. At the end of story sharing, you’ll have many
• Capture the Information in Small Pieces: While sheets lined up on the wall with hundreds of Post-it
you are listening to your design teammates tell their notes. This will be a great jumping off point for your
stories, write down notes and observations on Post- design team to begin imagining new opportunities
its (or their equivalent). Use concise but complete and solutions.
sentences that everyone on your team can easily
understand. Capture quotes—they are a powerful way
of representing the voice of a participant.

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Step 2: Search For Meaning

Now that you’ve downloaded what you learned during the Inspiration phase, it’s time to
work with your design team to identify patterns and themes. These themes will inform your
insight statements and eventually lead your team to identify opportunities for design.

This Gets You Cluster Related Information Turn Themes into Insight Statements
Topics to help you narrow To start searching for meaning in all Your team will take a closer look at the
and focus your design that you’ve discovered during your field themes you created for each of your clusters,
solution.
research, your team will group your as well as the stories that support these
learnings into categories or buckets. You themes. Next, you’ll transform each theme
Keep in Mind
Not every insight is
can start by having every team member into a sentence, eg: “There is no financial
entirely new information. choose three Post-its they find most incentive for distributors to deliver fruit
Often, you will find things interesting. Place each of them on a large in the community.” Write in full sentences.
that you knew about sheet of paper or spread them on the table in Each theme may result in multiple
before, but your research front of the team. insight statements.
may have given you a new
perspective. Don’t be Begin to look for more evidence of how these Revisit Your How Might We Statement
shy about retelling these relate to one another. Have any patterns Revisit the design challenge that you
stories. emerged? Is there a compelling insight started out with: How do your new insight
you heard again and again? A consistent statements relate to your challenge? Narrow
problem the people you’re designing down your insights to those that are most
for face? What feels significant? What relevant to the original design challenge.
surprised you? Start rearranging the Post-its Be prepared to let go of details that are less
into these new buckets. important. Try to limit your insights to the
three to five most important ones.
Clustering will take some time. Arrange and
rearrange the Post-its, discuss, debate, and Refine Your Insight Statements
talk through what’s emerging. Don’t stop Experiment with the wording and structure
until everyone is satisfied that the clusters to best communicate your insights. Create
represent rich opportunities for design. short and memorable sentences that get to
the point. Make sure your insights convey
Find Themes the sense of a new perspective or possibility.
Effectively identifying themes and naming Consider inviting someone who is not
these clusters will help guide your insights part of your team to read your insights
and “How Might We” statements down the statements and check whether they resonate
line. Name the clusters you have defined, with an outside audience.
e.g., “access to capital” or “problems
with distribution.” Continue to sort and
rearrange the information until you feel
your themes accurately represent your
design research—make sure no major
themes are missing.

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Step 3: Create “How Might We” Questions

Insights are most valuable when they can be used to generate inspiring new ideas. The trick
is to transform your insight statements into generative questions which will become the
springboard that your design team uses to brainstorm innovative new solutions. We call
these questions “How Might We” (HMW) questions.

This Gets You Create How Might We Questions •H

 ow might we incentivize distributors
Generative and During this step, you’ll create generative to make fruit deliveries in low-income
actionable brainstorming questions that build off of the insight neighborhoods? This HMW question
questions that respond to
sentences that your team just created. Start is better because it leaves open many
the insights you found.
each statement with “How Might We...?” possible directions that new solutions
Keep in Mind
as an invitation for input, suggestions, and can take, including logistics, financial
Avoid brainstorm exploration. Generate multiple questions incentives, or even community pride.
questions that already for every insight statement. Write them in This HMW question is scoped properly.
imply a solution. Ask plain, simple, and concise language.
yourself: “Why do we Select the Top Three
want to do that?” This will Scoping a proper question can be difficult. Your design team will select three of your
help you reframe your Too narrow and you may hinder creativity, best HMW questions for your brainstorm
question more broadly. but too broad and it won’t be actionable. session. Trust your gut feeling: Choose
those questions that feel exciting and help
Take a look at these examples: you think of ideas right away. Also, select
the questions that are most important to
• How might we provide transportation address and feel like they have the biggest
options for distributors supplying fruit opportunity for design solutions, even if
in low-income neighborhoods? This they feel difficult to solve for.
implies that the solution is related to
logistics. By framing the HMW question
so narrowly, we have limited the possible
directions that the team can take during
brainstorming. This statement is too
narrow.

• How might we sell more fruit in low-

income neighborhoods? This question
doesn’t give enough direction because
it doesn’t imply a starting point or
immediately help people generate
ideas around one category (such as
distributors). This HMW statement is
too broad.

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Case Study: Moneythink Mobile

Designing Digital Tools to Build Financial Literacy

In Chicago’s public high schools, many teens get their first formal taste of
financial literacy training thanks to a mentoring program called Moneythink.
Founded by students from the University of Chicago Booth School of
Business, the volunteer-run program teaches strategies like how to budget,
save, and build credit. It’s an innovative model that has scaled rapidly. To
further cement their teachings outside the classroom—where real-life
financial decisions are made—Moneythink partnered with IDEO.org and
Cause Labs to develop a mobile app to put tools in students’ hands when
they’re making spending decisions for themselves.

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The Outcome

Working closely with the high school students, IDEO.org and CauseLabs created an
interactive, social mobile app that encourages participants to track and share their
financial behaviors in an unintimidating, peer-to-peer context. The first version of the
mobile app is currently live in the Google Play store and Moneythink has tested the pilot
with hundreds of students in high schools on Chicago’s South and West sides. Learnings
from the pilot are now being assessed, and the Moneythink team is thinking about next
steps to continue improving the experience, with the goal of reaching a wider circle of
schools and organizations.

INSPIRATION One of the team’s main insights in this

phase was that young people do not have
Over the course of six weeks, the team
regular sources of income, so it’s hard
made two trips into the field to observe
to follow traditional financial practices,
the Moneythink mentoring program in
like setting a monthly budget. They tend
context, and to better understand the
to receive money around holidays and
students’ experiences in school and at
on their birthdays, and then plan their
home. Interviews focused on how students
purchases around inflows. The IDEO.org
use their mobile phones, what apps they
team also observed that spending goals
like, and what they gain from heavy use of
were often motivated by the desire for
social media. “We found there was a great
peer affirmation; a kid might save $200
energy around young people sharing and
to buy a pair of sneakers that would draw
getting feedback and affirmation about
approval from friends. “If that’s normal,”
themselves,” observed John Won, the
Won reflects, “how do we stop labeling the
team’s project lead. The team witnessed
sneakers as reckless spending, but rather
the popularity of apps like Snapchat, and
find tools that are better suited to take
the ubiquity of selfies as a primary mode
advantage of these spending patterns?”
of sharing. “We wanted to capture the fun
and the currency of being a young person,
socializing with friends.”
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IDEATION be more confident that the person you’re

designing for will use what you’ve made
Initially, the team envisioned an app that
than when they help make it themselves.
would merge a mint.com model with game
Once prototypes were in use that spirit
dynamics, leveraging the “gamification”
of co-creation was all the more valuable.
trend in technology for youth. One idea
Knowing they were safe to give feedback,
arose from the possibility of encouraging
students were able to voice their desire for
students to use eBay or Craigslist to sell
social features. The IDEO.org team may not
items they weren’t using. Another revolved
have realized as outside observers just how
around celebrating instances when they
make-or-break this element of the app was
resisted the temptation to spend.
to get students to use it on a regular basis.
Based on early interviews, however,
the designers found that without a social
element, the students weren’t particularly IMPLEMENTATION
engaged. At this stage, the team created As part of the project timeline, the IDEO.
a more flexible platform where they could org team released live prototypes of the
issue interactive financial challenges. app in several Chicago high schools, using
Using an Instagram-style format, the first two different challenges to evaluate user
challenge invited students to post a photo engagement. One challenge, the “Business
at the moment of a purchasing decision, Selfie,” was geared toward helping students
then tag it “spend” or “save.” Other students dress appropriately for interviews. Thought
could then like and comment on the photos, the classroom version of this exercise
creating a positive feedback dynamic that would have involved looking at photos and
spurred continued engagement. talking about etiquette, the app enabled
In designing technology for teenagers, the experience to be interactive, personal,
the input of those young people is critical and fun. Students went into their own
to creating something appropriate and closets, selected an outfit, and shared it
engaging. In the case of Moneythink, the with friends. “The challenge let them apply
designers asked the stakeholders how they theory to action,” explains Won, “This is
would design their own app, inviting them a core element of the app design: shifting
to sketch screen interfaces and invent from in-classroom to in-context, from
challenges. Human-centered design is all in-theory to applied, from once a week to
about designing for adoption, and you can’t real-time, from mentor to peer.”

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Method in Action: Insight Statements

MEDA, a financial services nonprofit that works with low-income, Latinx families in San Francisco,
partnered with IDEO.org to create a more engaging and confidence-building financial coaching
experience. After weeks of interviewing and shadowing clients, coaches, and staff, the team
distilled their learnings into a set of key insights that would help guide their design.

During research, one of the observations Using these insights as a base, the team
the team surfaced was around how developed multiple prototypes for coaches
resourceful coaches could be in their to trial with clients. The final design, The
approach. Many coaches had created their Viva Toolkit, puts people’s aspirations front
own tools to better meet the needs of their and center, and then takes clients through
clients and make finances more relatable tactical financial steps that can help make
but these tools had not been codified and those aspirations a reality. The kit also
scaled across the organization. The team builds in time for self- reflection and allows
also observed that clients’ immediate needs for a consistent client experience across all
(ex. bill payments, childcare etc.) took financial coaches.
precedence, making it difficult for them to
pause and reflect on their financial future.
However, the team heard that when clients
did give themselves the time to reflect and
received support to set goals, they were
able to internalize aspirations and take
small steps towards building a more secure
financial future.
The team synthesized these
observations into a set of key insights to
help guide their design. The biggest insight
was that it was often easier to talk about life
aspirations than financial goals. Although
these financial goals (i.e., saving x amount
of money) are ultimately linked to people’s
aspirations (e.g., going to college, buying
a home), the connections weren’t always
obvious.

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