Ideas are cheap. Have a lot of them.

This past week at CanUX I presented sketchboards, a low-fi technique that makes it possible for designers to explore and evaluate a range of interaction concepts. One thing we worked on was using a template that accommodates the sketching of 6 ideas. Here’s an example:

After some sketching on a problem, I asked the audience to tell me which sketch captured their best idea (the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth)? Admittedly, not everyone got to the fifth of sixth sketch, but the results still show the benefit of going beyond your first or second idea:

Note that no one thought their first idea was the best.