Ideation (creative process)

Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation comprises all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to development, to actualization. As such, it is an essential part of the design process, both in education and practice.

The book Ideation: The Birth and Death of Ideas (Graham and Bachmann, 2004) proposes the following methods of innovation:

This list of methods is by no means comprehensive or necessarily accurate. Graham and Bachmann's examples of revolutionary ideas might better be described as evolutionary; both Marx and Copernicus having built upon pre-existing concepts within new or different contexts. Similarly, the description provided for artistic innovation represents one perspective.

More-nuanced understandings, such as that expressed by Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, recognize the generative force technical and perceptual limitations provide within specific arts practices. In painting, for example, technical limitations such as the frame, the surface and the palette, along with perceptual constraints like figure/ground relationships and perspective, provide creative frameworks for the painter. Similarly in music, harmonic scales, meter and time signatures work in tandem with choices of instrumentation and expression to both produce specific results and improvise novel outcomes.

The T.O.T.E. model, an iterative problem solving strategy based on feedback loops, provides an alternative approach to considering the process of ideation. Ideation may also be considered as a facet of other generative systems, such as Emergence.

The word "ideation" has come under informal criticism as being a term of meaningless jargon, as well as being inappropriately similar to the term for suicidal ideation.

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