The objective of the Ideate stage was to explore possible solutions based on the design opportunities identified in the Define stage. Rather than committing to one idea too quickly, our goal was to generate a wide range of potential directions and evaluate how different features might support students balancing school, work, social plans, and rest. During this stage, our team created a creative matrix and completed a Human\u2013AI Interaction (HAX) guidelines worksheet, while I developed the storyboard and user flow diagram to visualize how the solution might function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To support this process, I used ChatGPT as a brainstorming tool to help expand my thinking. One of the most helpful moments occurred early in the ideation process when we were trying to translate our research findings into strong\u00a0How Might We (HMW)\u00a0questions for the creative matrix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prompt:<\/strong> AI Output:<\/strong> These suggestions helped us structure the creative matrix and ensured our brainstorming stayed focused on real user needs. As a team, we then generated multiple solution ideas for each HMW question. This process encouraged us to think broadly and consider many different ways the system could support users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After generating ideas, we used the\u00a0HAX guidelines worksheet\u00a0as a team to evaluate how AI should be used responsibly in our design. This helped us consider factors such as transparency, user control, and how clearly the system communicates its capabilities. For example, when exploring the idea of\u00a0priority-based rescheduling when tasks are missed, the worksheet helped us think about how the system should explain its suggestions and allow users to easily accept, reject, or modify them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the brainstorming and evaluation steps were collaborative, I individually created the\u00a0storyboard and user flow diagram. The storyboard helped visualize how a student might realistically interact with the scheduling tool throughout a scenario, while the user flow diagram mapped the sequence of actions required to complete core tasks such as adding tasks, rescheduling responsibilities, and planning social events. Creating these visuals helped ensure the solution felt coherent and that the interactions supported the user\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One major benefit of using AI in this stage was that it helped generate starting points for discussion and sped up the brainstorming process. It also helped frame our research insights into actionable design questions. However, a challenge was that AI suggestions could sometimes be generic and not fit within the framework of our solution. We had to critically evaluate which ideas actually aligned with our research and addressed our users\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, AI served as a brainstorming partner during the Ideate stage. It helped spark ideas and structure our thinking, but the final concepts, decisions, and visualizations were developed by my team and myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The objective of the Ideate stage was to explore possible solutions based on the design opportunities identified in the Define stage. Rather than committing to one idea too quickly, our goal was to generate a wide range of potential directions and evaluate how different features might support students balancing school, work, social plans, and rest. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sova.ourcloud.ou.edu\/tarynhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cHow can I turn research findings about student burnout, scheduling stress, and difficulty coordinating social plans into strong \u2018How Might We\u2019 questions for a design thinking creative matrix?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou can reframe your insights into open-ended questions such as:
\u2022 How might we help students see their workload in a way that feels manageable?
\u2022 How might we help students protect rest and personal time while staying productive?
\u2022 How might we reduce the effort required to coordinate schedules with friends?
\u2022 How might we design a scheduling system that reduces stress instead of adding to it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n