11 Oct 2008, Posted by Jo Hund in Process, 2 Comments
Experts design breadth first
or What they mean with thinking outside of the box.
Reading this article reminded me of a concept that applies to software design, user interface design, hardware engineering, and pretty much to any situation where you have to solve a problem creatively. I have applied it in a number of disciplines, however I have not used it in my current software design work as much as I should.
It is the concept of designing breadth first, before developing an idea further by going deep. Most creative people I have met (including myself) have the natural tendency to go deep first. They are confronted with a problem, they immediately come up with an idea for how to solve it, they get to work developing that idea, and get stuck in one limited way of thinking.
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