Design Methods for Ideating

Spring 2026

HERV 522
HERV 408

 

About this Course

In a rapidly evolving world where complex challenges demand innovative solutions, the ability to generate and develop original ideas is central to effective design practice.  This course examines the cognitive, methodological, and contextual foundations of idea generation, introducing you to a range of approaches that bridge creative intuition and systematic inquiry.

The course situates ideation within the broader design process, exploring how different modes of thinking - such as divergent, convergent, lateral, and systems thinking - shape the emergence of ideas. Drawing on perspectives from design, engineering, psychology, and the social sciences, you will investigate structured and exploratory methods for reframing problems, stimulating creativity, and translating insights into actionable design concepts.

Through a combination of readings, assignments and discussions, you will engage critically and reflectively with tools and frameworks that support ideation in both individual and collaborative contexts. By the end of the course, you will have a versatile toolkit for creative problem solving - one that balances imagination with rigor and supports the transition from creative, conceptual thinking to tangible design outcomes.

What You'll Learn

• Understand the different modes of thinking, and how they shape problem solving and idea generation.
  
  
• Understand a range of different approaches for generating ideas, both from design and from other disciplines.
  
  
• Learn the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to ideation, and how they can be incorporated into the design process.
  
  
• Understand how to convert ideas to concepts, test and evaluate concepts, and convert research to design requirements.

 

About your Instructor

Hello, my name is Nish and I will be your instructor for this course!

I'm a multi-disciplinary designer, researcher and educator, working at the intersection of design, business, and academia. While my background is in industrial design, I have spent the last decade designing everything from buildings to businesses, for clients across the world. Throughout that time, I've used a range of different ideation methods, tools and frameworks, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, depending on the context. I'm also fascinated by the ideation process used in other fields, such as painting and music composition, and what design can learn from those fields.

Feel free to add me on LinkedIn to keep in touch!

 

Communicating with me

Throughout this semester, we'll be interacting primarily through Canvas. But you can also contact me in the following ways:

Canvas Inbox: If you have any questions regarding any of the assignments, feel free to reach out via Canvas.

Email: In case of emergency, email me at nisrik@iu.edu. If you are not able to submit any assignments on time, please reach out and let me know, and I can give you an extension.

One-on-One Meetings: If you want to discuss anything specific regarding the class material, if you want specific feedback on assignments, or if you need help with anything else design related, feel free to reach out and we can set up a one-on-one meeting.

 

Course Mode

This course is completely online, asynchronous, and uses the IU Canvas learning management system. The course has three different types of activities:

 

Digest

Read, watch and ponder the posted course materials. The readings shared will range from blog posts or podcasts, to academic papers. If you haven't read such papers before, take a look at some of the articles in the "Reading Resources" section in the "Resources" page of the "Getting Started" module. 

Do

Each week you will practice using the methods in context. These assignments will range from creating mind-maps, to conducting user research, and facilitating brainstorming sessions.

Discuss

After each assignment, you’ll be given a prompt to think about and reflect on the methods you’ve learned that week, and how they worked in practice. You will also have to read through your peers’ reflections, to better understand how they might have approached the assignment, or if a certain method worked better in a different scenario. You’ll then offer your peers constructive critiques and feedback on their work, or draw parallels with your own work or reflections.

This means you will typically complete all the readings, complete the tasks in the assignment, and then share your reflection in a discussion post by Sunday at midnight. Then, you will have until Tuesday evenings at midnight to respond to peers’ discussion posts.

 

Notebooks

Alongside your weekly assignments, you’ll have to maintain 2 “notebooks”, in which you’ll keep track of every method/tool you’ve learned about, and every idea you’ve come up with. Updating these every week is important, as they will form a big part of your mid-term and final submission.

 

Team Assignments

The second half of the semester consists of a group project. You will have to select your project, create a detailed research plan and work together to execute it. The assignment submissions themselves will be individual, but you will have to work with your team mates to brainstorm, ideate, run workshops, and will share data and insights. Setting expectations and maintaining a good working relationship with your team mates is important to get the work done, but the goal is to learn and understand the concepts of the course. If there are any tensions within the team, reach out to me, and we can work out a solution.

 

Classes & Assignments

The course is divided into the following parts:

Part 1:  Methods for Ideating

For the first half of the course you will explore different approaches to ideating, explore frameworks and tools, and practicing using these tools in the context of a specific problem space. You’ll then reflect on the effectiveness, advantages and disadvantages of these tools.

Part 2: Putting it in Practice

For the second half of the course you’ll be applying what you’ve learned to create a research plan, select and use different ideating methods to generate ideas, convert these ideas to concepts, test and evaluate these concepts, and convert them to design requirements. This module will be done in a team.

 

Some details of the assignment might change, so refer to the Do and Discuss section each week for details.

 

Week	Date	Topic	Assignment	Grade
01	Jan 12 - 18	Ideation in the Design Process	Select a Problem Frame	Assignment: 40 Reflection: 10 Discussion: 10 Total: 60
02	Jan 20 - 25 (Jan 19 is MLK Day)	Ideating through Culture	Study trends in the industry and create a trend map	Assignment: 40 Reflection: 10 Discussion: 10 Total: 60
03	Jan 26 - Feb 1	Ideating through Processes	Create a series of Mindmaps to generate ideas	Assignment: 40 Reflection: 10 Discussion: 10 Total: 60
04	Feb 2 - 8	Ideating through Framing	Use alternative points of view to re-frame your problem and generate ideas	Assignment: 40 Reflection: 10 Discussion: 10 Total: 60
05	Feb 9 - 15	Ideating through Frameworks	Use a Creative Problem Solving Framework to generate ideas	Assignment: 40 Reflection: 10 Discussion: 10 Total: 60
06	Feb 16 - 22	Ideating with Non-Humans	Generative AI-Deation (Create concepts using Generative AI tools)	Assignment: 40 Reflection: 10 Discussion: 10 Total: 60
07	Feb 23 - March 1	Ideating with People	Organize a group Brainstorming / Ideation Session	Assignment: 40 Reflection: 10 Discussion: 10 Total: 60
08	March 2 -  8	Reflecting on the Methods of Ideation	Submit your Notebooks, and reflect on the ideas you've come up with and the methods you've learned / used	Assignment: 50 Reflection: 20 Discussion: 10 Total: 80
09	March 9 - 15	Selecting a Problem Frame	Create a comprehensive research plan	Assignment: 60
	March 16 - 22	Spring Break
10	March 23 - 29	Ideation in Practice	Ideation in Practice	Assignment: 60
11	March 30 - April 5	From Ideas to Concepts	Ideation in Practice	Assignment: 60
12	April 6 - 12	Testing Concepts	Testing your Concepts with Users	Assignment: 60
13	April 13 - 19	Evaluating Concepts	Evaluating your Concepts	Assignment: 60
14	April 20 - 26	From Concepts to Designs	Converting your research to Design Requirements	Assignment: 60
15	April 27 - May 3	Presenting Design Requirements	Presenting Design Requirements to Stakeholders	Assignment: 60
16	May 4 - 10	Reflecting on the Ideation Process	Submit your Notebooks, and reflect on the use of ideation methods in the design process	Final Reflection: 60 Group Evaluation: 20 Total: 80

 

Expectations for Course Work

Being an Active Learner
Since this is an asynchronous class, you need to take charge of your own learning experience. You're expected to log onto Canvas periodically to view assignments, presentations, contribute to discussions, post questions, and read and respond to others' posts. Activities and assignments will be posted in advance providing appropriate time for completion. You will have to plan your schedules accordingly.

 

Contribute to creating a community of learning. 
Everyone is expected to be accountable to each other to create a quality of learning experience. It is important to foster a classroom climate that is welcoming and safe for everyone. Please display respect for everyone in the class. 

 

Time Management & Late Submissions
Time management accounts for 10 points of every assignment (160 points overall / 16% of your overall grade). You will lose 1 point for every day your submission is late.

Submissions more than 7 days late will not be accepted. If you have any problems, or are not able to submit on time, please message me and let me know immediately, and I can grant you an extension. However, if you message me more than 7 days after the submission deadline, I can not give you an extension.

Each week's work is worth 6% of your grade, so even a few missed assignments could have a drastic impact on your final grade.

Submission formats
The preferred format for submission is a PDF, though some assignments may require other types of submissions. If your submission is a link (for example to a Miro board or a Google Doc), then you have to make sure I (i.e. nisrik@iu.edu) have permission to access/view the document. If I can't access it, it will count as a late submission.

 

Required Course Materials

All reading material will be provided throughout the course. 

You will also need:

• A laptop or desktop computer with a web browser that support Canvas
• Reliable internet access
• A PDF viewer to read course materials, i.e. Adobe Acrobat/Reader
• A Word processing software, i.e. Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Apple Pages
  
  

For online audio or video conferencing you will need:

• A laptop or desktop with a microphone (some people prefer a headset microphone or earbuds with mic)
• An external webcam is recommended but not required
• Access to Zoom-hosted meetings.

 

Grading

There are no final exams for this course! I’ll use a numeric scale during the semester before converting to a letter scale using the following correspondence:

Grade	Percentage Range
A+	97 - 100
A	94 - 97
A-	90 - 93
B+	87 - 89
B	84 - 86
B-	80 - 83
C+	77 - 79
C	74 - 76
C-	70 - 73
D+	67 - 69
D	64 - 66
D-	60 - 63
F	< 60