Introducing

The RackBrain Method

A brainstorming and design thinking toolkit for creative problem solving and testing ideas with physical play and a design sprint process

OVERVIEW

To create a functional brainstorming method to be used to solve complex problems that vary from redesigning

to generating ideas for original work.

TOOLBOX

Adobe Illustrator, Invision Studio, Adobe Photoshop, Keynote

ROLE & DURATION

Design Thinker & Facilitator

Primary & Secondary Research, Design Thinking, Facilitating, Hosting, Sketching, Testing

Individual Project including a group of 8 participants for the user testing. The team consisted of UX designers, Business Management senior students and a film editor.

March 2019 - July 2019

THE challenge

Attending quite a lot of meetings to sit and come up with ideas can quickly become dull, repetitive, and uninspiring. Some businesses have had unsuccessful results due to the exaggerated time extension lead on.

“Creativity is not the domain of one single person. Through free associations of thoughts and brainstorming, an accidental suggestion can be the best solution.

“~Joshua Fernandez

RESEARCH

Nowadays, the process of brainstorming for ideas has evolved and grown from its original time into an era of digital innovation with a modern set of rules.

Every step has been tried, tweaked, tested, and measured over the course of 100+ sprints and refined with the input gathered from growing sprint communities.

PAINPOINTS

Attending quite a lot of meetings to sit and come up with ideas can quickly be dull and uninspiring.

Some businesses have had unsuccessful results due to the exaggerated time extension lead on.

For everyone to participate & share their views, some companies have revamped the quality of their brainstorming ways.

THE AIMS

Develop a brainstorming method that combines physical play, and empathy with task mapping and design thinking processes.

Test whether this ideation method shows creative and manageable results

Attempt to make meetings more fun, less time consuming, and deliver better results

FACILITATOR'S NOTES

In order to educate myself with enough knowledge about becoming a facilitator and team leader, I had to learn how to properly host and guide my teammates through the tasks one hour at a time.

Therefore, I’ve collected input from both physical and digital mediums such as the LEGO Serious Play manual and design thinking alongside the online facilitators’ guide.

RBM STEPS & GUIDELINES

The strategies and step-by-step guidelines for the sprint are kept confidential for privacy. For further elaboration on the sprint,

please get in touch

Briefly the method intergrates the playful elements of idea generating from LEGO Serious Play into the usual Ideation process of Design Thinking as a replacement.

Audible: case study

introducing audible collections

Audible Collections empowers users to take control of their Audiobooks libraries while further integrating Audible into the Amazon digital ecosystem.

In order to run this sprint properly, I needed to find an adequate problem to solve. Therefore, after looking through the 2019 reviews of Audible, an Amazon-based company app that offers audiobooks, I’ve scanned through 78 out of many complaints about issues regarding the app’s lacking user experience and overall missing features.

Narrowed issues detected in the App

No ability to sort my library
App loses my place in the book
Irrelevant recommendation system features
Need to open a browser to purchase books
Can only cancel a membership through the web version
No categorized narrator voice speech
Not much interaction with the book

(Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Audible or Amazon. I am an independent UX/UI Designer working to design a better experience for a product I love.)

BRIEF INSIGHT INTO THE PROCESS

PRE RBM

Once I had prepared my checklist, it was time for me to check off what tools I needed to supply for this mini-sprint.

For the physical play, I needed to get an LSP starter kit that included a variety of different LEGO bricks and a manual.

I had gathered all the tools I needed and a few snacks for the participants along the way.

GATHERING A TEAM

In order to build the perfect team, I needed to gather not only individuals who were already involved in the user experience design domain but also ones who were outside this domain.

- The more diverse the participants are,

the higher the chance for results to be more creative.

- I needed to gather people who could be honest about their motivations for the quality of the work not to suffer.

My team consisted of UX designers, Business Management senior students, and a film editor.

setting the stage

Setting the stage was harder to manage.

After finding the right team, I needed to set a suitable time and space to conduct my mini-sprint.

The challenges I've faced while completing this part:

Difficulty of voting on a date and time due to participants’ last-minute schedules.
Unable to conduct the session for more than 3 hours.
Participants reclining to come in at the last minute

The mini-sprint thus took place on the 6th of March 2019 in the Campus library (Private Group meeting room).

In an attempt to make meetings more fun, less time consuming, and deliver better results, companies such as the LEGO group and Google Ventures have taken brainstorming to the next level.

WORDS FROM THE PARTICIPANTS

Cinematographer, 24 Yrs

The exploratory challenges were very interesting and fun! I got to know my teammates better before building ideas

UX Designer, 27 Yrs

Building with the metaphores was the ideal way to generate ideas.

UX Designer, 25 Yrs

I highly appreciated exploring all the insights from the participants and seeing their own thought process towards fixing the same problem

Marketing Student, 24 Yrs

Digging deep into building my personal thoughts pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Building the persona

With the help of the participants, I was able to select one user that I eventually chose as my primary persona. I have chosen the Traveler.

Our persona is an 18-year-old gal named Mariana Santos.

How Might We

“How might we generate a better and more intuitive book browsing experience”

Screenshot 2023-06-12 at 11.10.33 PM.png

SKETCHING & WIREFRAMES

With the help of the playa and design thinking method, I was able to upgrade some parts of the Audible App while staying loyal to its visual content.

From the original handout of problems, the following were:

No ability to sort my library
Cannot fast forward while listening or pick up where I left off
Cannot cope with some versions of the narrators’ accent

Cannot cancel membership through the app version
Most of the app content is store offering.
Not personal enough recommendations.
Cannot cope with some versions of the narrators’ accent

Final screens constructed by the team

Final Design Display:

Upgrade on user experience for Audiobook library selection.
Taking control of your audible library

Concluding Thoughts...

The overall experience of conducting my first sprint was truly fun, challenging, and fascinating.
The idea of establishing that a few months ago was almost thrown aside, yet approaching such
a challenging topic was highly insightful for me at the end!

Thank You for reading!