DSKD Method Cards

DSKD Method Cards

BY SILJE KAMILLE FRIIS AND ANNE KATRINE G. GELTING
Published by Kolding School of Design, Denmark
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Thanks to
We would like to express our deepest thanks and gratitude to the
following individuals and frms who have helped make this method
collection come true.
The people at e-Types, who initiated the frst method collection in 2005
together with Silje Kamille Friis as part of her Industrial PhD project
Conscious Design Practice as a Strategic Tool. We owe e-Types big
thanks for allowing us to reuse parts of the material in this collection.
Dr Min Basadur, Professor of Innovation at the Michael G. DeGroote
School of Business at McMaster University and Founder of Basadur
Applied Creativity, who has allowed us to share some of the unique
approaches which he has developed as part of the Simplex System.
Lotte Dars, Associate Professor at Department of Learning, Aarhus
University and the founder of the LAICS, Leadership and Innovation
in Complex Systems master programme, who has been an inspiring
role model for years and is responsible for several of the methods
presented here.
Annette Tingstrup, who contributes with a number of approaches to
strategy making and who developed Discover Cards together with
Silje Kamille Friis.
Anne Louise Bang, Pia Pedersen, and Kirsten Bonde Srensen at
Kolding School of Design for their contributions and suggestions.
The 4th semester students at Kolding School of Design, who in the
spring of 2011 experimented with several of the methods in this
collection and shared their reactions with us as part of the Design
Methods course.
Design student Mai Boline Bjerre Jrgensen for capturing the spirit
and meaning of the methods in the illustrations and layout of the
cards and graphic designer Poul Allan Bruun for designing the
method collection packaging and brochure.
Finally, we would like to thank Lone Dalsgaard Andr, Mathilde
Aggebo, Rikke Hansen, Arne Vollertsen, Margrethe Ellegaard Hansen,
Marianne Baggesen Hilger, and Bo Severin Bruun at Kolding School of
Design for their support and advice.
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In the process of producing the collection, all methods have gone
through extensive iteration. First at strategic design frm e-Types, who
initiated the method cards together with Silje Kamille Friis in 2005
Since then, teachers as well as 2nd and 3rd year students at Kolding
School of Design have explored and commented on the methods.
Some methods have thus been abandoned or changed entirely, and
new ones have been added, for instance the methods by Min Basadur
and Lotte Dars, who most kindly have allowed us to share their
unique approaches to creative team work.
We welcome and appreciate any feedback. Please contact us on these
e-mail addresses:
[email protected] and [email protected]
Kolding School of Design looks forward to hearing from you, and we
hope you will enjoy the cards!
DSKD Method Cards
The DSKD Method Cards is a collection of methods developed and
used by practitioners and theorists working in the felds of design
and innovation. The principal purpose of the DSKD Method Cards
is to create a collective process language to be used by individuals,
teams, leaders, and facilitators in relation to diferent types of design
initiatives.
The collection consists of 62 methods, which have been designed in
the form of individual cards in order to facilitate collaboration. Each
card consists of a picture side and a text side explaining the method
and providing an example of how to apply it. The cards are classifed
as fve suits covering activities of the creative process: Collaborate,
Collect, Comprehend, Conceptualise, and Create.
We acknowledge that the method descriptions are concise and might
therefore not do full justice to the knowledge and experience on
which they are founded. Whenever possible, we have put down the
reference. However, our referencing is not complete, since many of the
methods have a history that goes far back, and it would be impossible
to acknowledge everyone, who has infuenced the development of
one particular approach.
All of the methods can be used in diferent ways and at various stages
of the creative process. They change with the people who use them
and the context within which they operate, which means that there is
a steady development of new ways of working. Thus, the deck should
serve as a springboard for new methods in professional practices and
organisations and within educational institutions.
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Comprehend Blue
The methods in the Comprehend category aim at producing
knowledge about the existing situation by thinking, for instance
by organising or analysing information.
Conceptualise Purple
The methods in the Conceptualise category focus on producing
knowledge about future possibilities, for instance by generating and
evaluating ideas.
Create Red
The methods in the Create category aim at creating new knowledge
by exploring future possibilities, for instance by making experiments
or prototypes.
Card Categories
The DSKD Method Cards have been divided into fve categories,
which are overall descriptions of the types of activities they cover.
The frst category, Collaborate, covers approaches to the creative
work in teams. The other four categories relate directly to phases in
the creative process: Collect, Comprehend, Conceptualise, and Create.
For identifcation purposes, each category has its own colour code.
Collaborate Black
The methods in the Collaboration category support team endeavours
throughout the creative process by surfacing knowledge about team
dynamics and processes.
Collect Green
The methods in the Collect category focus on producing knowledge
about the existing situation through experience, for instance
observing or interviewing.
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The four categories can be seen to represent sequences in a process
starting with collecting information, comprehending the information,
conceptualising new opportunities, and fnalising by creating
prototypes or carrying out experiments. While this is certainly one
option, there are many diferent approaches to design and innovtion,
and it is possible to start with any one of the fve categories, for
instance by making real-life experiments (Create), by generating ideas
(Conceptualise), by analysing and organising existing material
(Comprehend) or by working on the team relations (Collaborate).
You can even move back and forth between the phases of the creative
process.
*) Herbert A. Simon, 1969, The Sciences of the Artifcial, The MIT Press

The model illustrates diferent approaches to knowledge production
in the creative process: Collecting and Comprehending information
about the existing situation on one side of the circle, and producing
new opportunities through Concepts and Creations on the other.
Collaboration is at the core of the creative process.
The Concept
The model on the opposite page illustrates the underlying dynamics
of the fve method categories. Four of the categories relate directly
to phases in the creative process and represent particular ways of
producing knowledge: Collect, Comprehend, Conceptualise, and
Create.
Usually, we do not think of the Conceptualise and Create categories
as producing knowledge. However, in relation to creative processes
this approach makes sense. According to the Nobel Prize winner,
Herbert A. Simon, The natural sciences are concerned with how
things are design on the other hand, is concerned with how things
ought to be.* To come full circle in a design or innovation process,
one usually has to produce knowledge about the existing situation as
well as the possible future.
You can produce knowledge about what is by collecting information,
for instance through interviews and observation.
You can produce knowledge about what is by comprehending, for
instance by organising and analysing information.
You can produce knowledge about what might be by conceptualising,
for instance by ideation and evaluation.
You can produce knowledge about what might be by creation, for
instance by experimenting and building models.
Create Collect
Conceptualise Comprehend
Collaborate
Creating knowledge
about what might be
Creating knowledge
about what is
Creating knowledge
by experience
Creating knowledge
by thinking
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Conceptualise
38. Scenarios
39. Success Criteria Grid
40. Telescoping
41. Hypothesis Meeting
42. Category Shift
43. Multi Perspectives
44. Take a Diferent Path
45. 5 Senses
46. Inverse Brainstorm
47. Discover Cards
48. Rip
49. Indirect Inspiration
50. Direct Inspiration
51. Brainstorm
52. Let Go
Create
53. Sketching Together
54. The Muse
55. Creative Constraints
56. Prototyping
57. Universes
58. Prototyping Behaviour
59. Collaging
60. Video Prototyping
61. Informing by Characters
62. Storytelling
Getting Started
With 62 method cards in front of you, you might think: how on earth
do I get started?
Depending on your situation, you might choose diferent avenues.
If you have a project starting tomorrow
We suggest that you start out by reading the cases displayed in this
folder. They will show you how others have put together projects and
bring forward examples of methods from the fve categories. This
will provide you with a good starting point for selecting your own
methods and where to look further.
If you want to include the team in the process
You could start out by dividing the cards between the team members.
Give them a set time to read & understand. You can either have them
briefy present the methods to each other or move straight ahead to
creating the process together.
Use the Road Map method (02) as inspiration.
If there is no time pressure and you are curious
Start out by reading the cases in this folder to get a sense of the span
of the methods. Do not go ahead and read all the methods at once; as
this becomes incredibly tedious. Build a tower using the cards or pin
them to a wall and pick the ones, which you are drawn to. Then read
them and let go. The methods will come to you when you need them.
The Methods
Collaborate
1. Codex
2. Road Map
3. Body Map
4. Who is Around the Table?
5. Check In & Check Out
6. Team Time Out
7. Positive Feedback
8. Prototyping Space
Collect
9. Photo Boards
10. Document Collect
11. E-mail Questionnaires
12. Personal Narratives
13. The Observer
14. Experience Mapping
15. 100+ Communication
16. Probe Kits
17. Discover in Situ
18. Biography
19. Open Questions
20. Being a Tourist
21. Under the Skin
22. Sort Cards
23. Investigate Opposites
Comprehend
24. Repertory Grid
25. Clusters
26. Visualising Data
27. Photo Inquiry
28. Day Cycle
29. Personas
30. Users in the Future
31. Visual Thinking
32. Challenge Framing
33. Challenge Mapping
34. Logbook
35. Positioning Diagram
36. Data Wall
37. Three Circles Map
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very large Photo Boards (09) that she surrounded her workspace with,
noting down on the photo boards the diferent interesting remarks
she had heard while talking to people.
After collecting the diferent data, the designer decided to
try to elicit diferent categories of aesthetic preferences and diferent
attitudes towards mobile electronic devices by Clustering (25)
information. She found that there were some recurring issues in
nearly all e-mail answers and street interviews. When sorting the
answers and photos from the street interviews into diferent categories
she came up with titles for the categories that were suggestive and
inspiring to work with. Some of them were: Humans versus machines,
Aging versus growing and My personal mark.
Leaving the analytic and refective part of the process for
a while, the designer then went out and started gathering diferent
objects and materials from fea markets, thrift shops, scrap yards,
and toy stores and began building small three-dimensional sketchy
Prototypes (56) in the form of collages that captured the categories
established earlier. She used The Repertory Grid (24) to help refect on
and evaluate the collages and how the diferent colours and details
used ftted the categories.
In the workshop she started making new Prototypes (56)
experimenting with diferent materials like latex, leather, plastic and
concrete and also working with surface variations and colours. Based
on the experiments she developed 24 diferent swatches of materials,
which she tested using the Discover In Situ (17) method. She received
permission to set up a small workshop area in a local computer shop
interviewing people about their initial reactions to the diferent
materials. Subsequently, she selected two of the materials and
developed a proposal for a new collection of skins for laptop and
mobile phones.
The Cases
In the following, we will present three cases that illustrate the use
of the method cards. We have chosen three very diferent cases to
show the variety of approaches to creative work and to bring forth
a number of diferent methods.
Case 1 Textile: Skins for Electronic Products
Case 2 Visual Identity: International Music Festival
Case 3 Innovation: Toys, Infant & Preschool
Case 1
A: Textile, A Collection of new skins for mobile electronic products
Logbook (34)
E-mail Questionnaires (11)
Photo Boards (09)
Clusters (25)
Prototyping (56)
Repertory Grid (24)
Prototyping (56)
Discover in Situ (17)
The designer started the process by breaking in a new Logbook (34)
that she carried with her everywhere collecting images and gathering
inspiration, illustrating concepts and writing down ideas and
thoughts. This book helped her refect continuously on diferent
aspects of the project, and when giving her presentation, she could
look back on the process and determine which decisions were made
at which point and why.
In order to sense the kinds of relations existing between
people and their electronic gadgets, the designer started out by
sending an E-mail Questionnaire (11) to everybody in her social and
professional network asking short questions like: What does your
laptop look like? How old is it? How do you feel about it? What is the
most beautiful object you have? Why do you consider it beautiful?
She requested written responses and photos.
Also the designer went out into the streets and asked
random persons to show her what they were carrying such as purses,
cosmetics, and toys but also their laptops, phones, or other mobile
electronic gadgets like hand-held video game consoles and tell a bit
about them. She also took numerous pictures of the objects and made
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Logbook
L o g b o o k
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E-mail
Questionaires
E - m a i l
Q u e s t i o n a i r e s
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Photo Boards
P h o t o B o a r d s
Clusters
C l u s t e r s
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Prototyping
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Repertory Grid
R e p e r t o r y G r i d
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Prototyping
P r o t o t y p i n g
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Three Circles Map
T h r e e C i r c l e s M a p
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Case 2
Visual Identity, International Music Festival
Methods:
Road Map (02)
Team Time Outs (06)
Data Wall (36)
Sort Cards (22)
Discover Cards (47)
Document Collect (10)
Open Questions (19)
Hypothesis Meeting (41)
Universes (57)
Prototyping (56)
Positive Feedback (07)
Three Circles Map (37)
Positioning Diagram (35)
Visualising Data (26)
Success Criteria Grid (39)
The team, consisting of strategists and designers, commenced by
making a Road Map (02) for how they wanted the process to be.
They created a process where strategists and designers would work
in parallel and meet regularly to share results (Team Time Outs 06)
and continuously map results on a shared wall (Data Wall 36).
As you will see, the central point of this process is a continuous loop
between the strategic positioning of the festival and the visual design
of the identity. Neither is in charge. It is a shared exploration and
decision-making process.
The strategists started out by inviting members of the board and
management group to a workshop applying Sort Cards (22) and
Discover Cards (47) to help the participants explore, among other
things, the vision, mission, and values of the music festival. When
using the Discover Cards for disclosing values, the picture side of the
cards face upward to help participants pick images in an associative
way. In addition to the workshop, the team gathered material about
developments in the market (Document Collect 10) and conducted
user interviews (Open Questions 19). The information was then
mapped by the help of The Three Circles Map (37), the Positioning
Diagram (35) and Visualising Data (26).
Simultaneously, designers, who had participated in the workshops
as observers, had a Hypothesis Meeting (41), diverging on possible
directions. Next step was the creation of visual Universes (57) leading
to the frst sketches (Prototyping 56).
At this point, they all met up at the Data Wall (36), presented their
work and compared insights and intuitions about where the project
was heading. They evaluated their fndings by giving Positive
Feedback (07) and creating a Success Criteria Grid (39) for a more
systematic evaluation, placing the clients criteria at the top, and the
diferent design concepts on the left side. After going through a couple
of iteration loops, the team was able to integrate strategy and design
and present the result to the client.
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Sort Cards
S o r t C a r d s
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47
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D i s c o v e r C a r d s
Document Collect
D o c u m e n t C o l l e c t
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Open Questions
O p e n Q u e s t i o n s
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Three Circles Map
T h r e e C i r c l e s M a p
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PositioningDiagram
P o s i t i o n i n g D i a g r a m
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Positive FeedBack
P o s i t i v e F e e d B a c k
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Success Criteria
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S u c c e s s C r i t e r i a
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Prototyping
P r o t o t y p i n g
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Universes
U n i v e r s e s
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Hypothesis
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H y p o t h e s i s
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Case 3
Innovation, Toys, Infant & Preschool
Methods:
Document Collect (10)
Probe Kits (16)
Clusters (25)
Day Cycle (28)
Visualising Data (26)
Scenarios (38)
Brainstorm (51)
Telescoping (40)
Sketching Together (53)
Prototyping (56)
The objective of the Dream Range project was to identify and visualise
new opportunities within the Infant and Preschool toy market for a
large toy company.
The project went through the four phases: Collect, Comprehend,
Conceptualise, and Create. The team, consisting of four concept
developers, started out by collecting data (Document Collect 10)
about various aspects of the situation: the company (values, mission,
competences), the users and their parents (knowledge about
childrens development, their interests, girls versus boys, etc.),
and the market (identifying the players). They included futures
studies to recognise possible developments in the user group and
the market.
Simultaneously, they created Probe Kits (16), which were handed
out to the children and their parents, in order to get a sense of the
childrens whereabouts and activities during a normal day and on
weekends.
In the second phase, Comprehend, the team began to organise
information (Clusters 25) in relation to what the children were doing
when, where, how, and with whom. Seeing the astounding amount of
activities during a single day, the team decided to map the childrens
Day Cycle (28), and realised that during a normal day, children within
the user group spend little time at home playing, and indeed require
other methods and objects to keep them activated and stimulated
during a day of transportation, going to the kindergarten and being
part of their parents chores on the way. The team moved on to
visualise their fndings (Visualising Data 26).
In the third phase, Conceptualise, the team started out by creating a
series of Scenarios (38), for instance the Quality Time scenario and
the Visible Child scenario. These are based on the general facts that
parents spend less time with their children, but want that time to
be the best, and that children are planned and wanted, parents are
older and better of, and in parts of society children have become a
status symbol. At this point, the team went on to invite the company
representatives to participate in a series of Brainstorms (51), using
their visualisations and scenarios to prime them. After producing a
large amount of ideas, they went on to evaluate and select the most
promising ideas by Telescoping (40).
In the fourth phase, Create, the team used the Sketching Together (53)
to bring the concepts to life. Moms Equipment suggestions for a
series of products for the mother during pregnancy and after giving
birth; Togetherness ideas for products that focus on fast and fun
entryways to playing together; Mobile Play Material for children to
bring along during the day, and so on. After presenting the 30 Dream
Range ideas, the Mobile Play Material was chosen, and the team went
on to Prototyping (56) ideas for toys and other gadgets to bring along
during the day.
The process lasted less than one month, and a large part of the
fndings and concepts were included in the development plan.

17 16
Document Collect
D o c u m e n t C o l l e c t
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Clusters
C l u s t e r s
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Day Cycle
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Day Cycle
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Brainstorm
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Sketching
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Prototyping
P r o t o t y p i n g
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VisualisingData
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References and suggestions for further reading
Bang, Anne Louise, and Nissen, Kirsten, 2009, Facilitating Teamwork
in the Design Process: Repertory Grid as an Approach to Exploratory
Inquiry, NORDES, Nordic Design Research Conference
Basadur, Min, 1994, Flight to Creativity. How to dramatically improve
your creative performance, AC Press
Boland, Richard J. and Collopy, Fred, 2004, Managing as Designing,
Stanford Business Books
Dars, Lotte, 2001, Innovation in the Making, Samfundslitteratur
Dars, Lotte, 2011, Innovationspdagogik. Kunsten at fremelske
innovationskompetence, Samfundslitteratur
Dars, Lotte and Ibbotson, Piers, 2008, Directing Creativity: The Art and
Craft of Creative Leadership, Journal of Management & Organization,
2008, vol. 14, pp. 548-559
e-Types, www.e-types.com
Friis, Silje Alberthe Kamille, 2006, Conscious Design Practice as a
Strategic Tool, Thesis in collaboration with e-Types, e-Types print
Gaver, Bill; Dunne, Tony & Pacenti, Elena: Cultural probes
in Interactions, vol. 6, issue 1, pp. 21-29, Jan/Feb, 1999
Gelting, Anne Katrine G., 2010, Design methods
in practice at Kolding School of Design, Laboratory for Design,
Innovation and Sustainability. Project report.
IDEO Method Cards, 2002, William Stout Architectural Books,
San Francisco
Mattelmki, Tuuli, 2006, Design Probes,
University of Art and Design Helsinki
Kelley, Tom, with Littman, Jonathan, 2005, The Ten Faces of
Innovation, Currency Doubleday
Pedersen, Pia, 2012, upcoming paper,
Visualizing Transformation, DSKD
Roam, Dan, 2008, The Back of the Napkin. Solving Problems
and Selling Ideas with Pictures, Portfolio, Penguin Books
Simon, Herbert A. 1969, The Sciences of the Artifcial, The MIT Press
Srensen, Kirsten Bonde, 2011, When designing emerges
into strategies in an organization and in individuals,
Kolding School of Design
Times Online, April 13th 2004 Theyve got it! Science grasps eureka
moment,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/
article822534.ece (240711)
The Kolding School of Design
gade 10
6000 Kolding
Denmark
Copyright 2011
All rights reserved,
including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
Silje Kamille Friis & Anne Katrine Gelting
Graphic design by Mai Boline Bjerre Jrgensen (the cards)
and Poul Allan Bruun (the brochure)
The text is set in The Wave and ID00 Serif
by e-Types
https://playtype.com
Printed in DenmarK
By Clausen Grafsk ApS
Odense, Denmark
The Kolding School of Design
The Kolding School of Design (DSKD) is an independent higher institution
under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Culture. The school has recently
gained status as Design University and educates bachelor and master students.
In addition, the school ofers a Masters education in Design Management in
collaboration with the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). As of January
2011, DK also hosts the master level Interaction Design Program at Copenhagen
Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). There are presently 390 students distributed
across six design domains of study: Graphic Design, Illustration Design, Fashion
Design, Textile Design, Industrial Design and Interactive Design, and 14 PhD
students of which 4 are Industrial PhD students.

For further reading go to www.dskd.dk