{"id":19,"date":"2022-05-24T02:16:44","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T02:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/startups\/blog\/?p=19"},"modified":"2024-10-15T01:45:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T09:45:42","slug":"zerotoone-art-of-ideation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/startups\/blog\/zerotoone-art-of-ideation-2\/","title":{"rendered":"#ZeroToOne:\u200aThe Art of Ideation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well would you look at that! We have officially reached the halfway point of our series Zero to One. I wanted to start this week\u2019s post off with a moment to celebrate the product journey thus far. If you\u2019ve been with us from week one, we started off by introducing the UX process<\/a>, followed by understanding your users and their challenges. We emphasized building with the end user in mind, so now that you\u2019ve done your due diligence and research, it\u2019s time for the magic to start\u2026 well, almost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest takeaways from last week\u2019s post<\/a> was thinking and building with the end user in mind to obtain the best insight for user experience. One might ask, \u201cso where do we start? How do we even begin to start the brainstorming process?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, I\u2019ve seen this lumped together as one single step. However, in my experience and for the sake of this post I figured it would make more sense if I broke it into two steps, generating<\/strong> and deciding<\/strong> the ideas. Also, a quick look ahead on how to test<\/strong> those ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that being said, let\u2019s get into how you or your team should approach the ideation phase of the product journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEureka\u201d Creating the idea.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before we dive into the ideation phase, I wanted to briefly circle back again to last week\u2019s topic of empathize and define<\/strong> (told you this was going to be non-linear) and specifically the define<\/strong> portion. Now if you remember, in the defining phase the biggest takeaway was to understand your \u201cXYZ<\/strong>\u201d or better known as your \u201cwho<\/strong>, what<\/strong>, and why<\/strong>\u201d because, after all, who are we building for? You guessed it, the user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping that in mind, now that you and your team are challenged with the next steps, how to brainstorm on how to generate<\/strong> solutions that solve real user problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best practices<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow might we\u201d questions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After you and your team have taken time to have a thorough discovery of your user, it\u2019s important to refer back to your research, because from this point is where we want to start brainstorming some theoretical, or How might we<\/em><\/strong> (HMW<\/em>), questions. A How might we<\/em> question can help frame your ideation so that you and your team can begin exploring new ways to solve the problems at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll be using Swipabot<\/a> once more as a project example. A couple of examples of HMW<\/em> questions I used were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n