#I am still in the brainstorming stages of this universe because the first iteration had all the races based off of modern animals

[terraos]

The worst part about spec bio in a fairly unchanged modernized world is definitely trying to navigate the evolution tree and how advanced a species should get in a relative length of time. Where should the cousin species diverge in order for the species in question to be roughly on par with human intelligence in the evolution stages

[poptartmochi]

OC QUESTION TIME!!! 2, 14, 25, 29, 39, and 50!

OHHHHHOHOHOH, YOU'RE APPROACHING ME!!!! i am not the jonker babey but i AM the rambler so! i'm preemptively putting this below a readmore :']< thank you for the ask sky!!! 😄😄😄💙

here's the prompt!

2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?

So. 😐😳😳🙈🙈 right now I think the uncontested favorite is Gioia! she's just so girlie of all time... I think the different stages of her character are what keep pulling me back to her- I don't have many characters like that and it's really fun to brainstorm the bridges between each of her eras. Another favorite is Lana, my YGO GX oc and also. my first one ever <3 Gioia has in-universe eras but Lana... lana has had so many rewrites and reincarnations to get to where she is now. working on her feels like honoring baby sarah so I am very partial to Ms. Lana too 🥰

14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory

ouuuuug I have SO many with tragic backstories.. i was one of those kids growing up that was obsessed with putting my characters through the most harrowing shit ever 😆 i say that like it's in the past.. i am still on this madness n mania! I think one the most tragic backstories I have is that of my Dragon Ball Xenoverse protagonist... Goten! 🤓🤠🤪🤪🤪🤓🤓😳

truthfully in retrospect I cannot tell you WHY I decided to play as Goten, beyond the fact that Xeno Trunks doesn't have his bestie + seemed a bit lonely.. i said by god I'm gonna help you trunks!! 😭😭 I don't remember how or why I ended up where I did, but I decided that this specific iteration of Goten would be from a version of the timeline (and there is. a lot of lore I wrote to explain this 🆘🆘) where Frieza did end up succeeding in defeating Goku and conquering the Earth, falling in line with the Frieza Planet #80 thing that happens in one of the games (I never played it, but I read about this on the wiki and went hahahahahaha). I'm answering this question last so I won't talk too deeply about The Tragedies that happen in his timeline prior to Xenoverse, but :( he ofc never got to meet his dad, and he loses Gohan and Chichi back to back.. I'm going through my notes again- even Piccolo dies?! 😭 Anyways, Goten grows up in a world where everyone is faced with a power so intense that struggling against it is futile. Despite knowing this, the remaining Z Fighters struggle anyways... Without any intervention, the future is very bleak.

Things only change when Goten gets into an attack ship to leave Earth (I think this was originally to go somewhere that he could become powerful without drawing Frieza's attention? but then it kinda fridges the rest of the Z Fighters so i'm not super keen on it anymore..) He's beamed into the prologue of Xenoverse, and the plot unfurls pretty normally from there. Despite the headache he gets trying to understand everything, he's pretty happy to be in the Time Patrol because it does help him become more powerful! plus he gets to learn more about his father + also how to defeat Frieza! I don't think I ever properly circled around to his original narrative, before Xenoverse, but I think that arc should conclude with him realizing Frieza is on some fucked up time sauce and that they Actually Shouldn't be as powerful as they are.. shenanigans ensue, it takes Goten WITH all of the Xenoverse experience, the Z Fighters, and a surprise betrayal from Vegeta to defeat him. :]

Even though his original business with the Time Patrol is finished at that point, I think he stayed with them because he was curious about How his timeline got so fucked up from the original one... this loops into Xenoverse 2, I imagine. Anyways, he has one foot in the Time Patrol and one foot in his own world- iirc they are able to revive everyone who died during Frieza's conquest of Earth bc Gohan has a romance with Videl in their timeline? but I think Goku stays dead bc he'd died twice at that point??

anyways this concluded with xenoverse pan swag, at least one xeno gotenks moment where he uses TWO SWORDS YAHH (Goten uses either Yajirobe's katana or Yamcha's Azure Dragon Sword.. i forget which though 😭😭😭), and a smidge of truten 🥺🥺🥺 to top it all off. his and trunks' relationship here drives me INSANE because like. Trunks doesn't exist in Goten's timeline and Goten doesn't exist in Trunks' timeline, and yet here they are!!! i think they're able to relate on a lot of things too, but primarily the melancholy of fixing issues with the Main Timeline, where everything is good and right, where Goku and Gohan are alive. 🥺 now that I think of it, the one event where your character is supposed to stop Trunks from yeehawing into the sunset with Future Gohan is probably. very difficult for Goten because he'd probably disappear with his suddenly-alive brother too, if given the chance! but anyways thanks to these kinds of things they have a lot of trust in each other + a lot of synchronization between each other.. I think that makes xenoverse 2 a lot more dramatic too mwahahaha

(i answered this one last bc i was worried i'd go overboard with it... the prophecy came true, girl help!! 😱🤪🤪)

25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)

This one... it is very funny to me... so as I said above, Lana was my first OC ever.. when I first made her at the age of 6 or 7, she was really just a modpodge of things I thought were cool: France 😞, fashion, mysterious green blood that was from another universe....??? When Lana was created, she barely had a personality and well.. since I was an isolated child living on the internet, we really didn't have anything in common.

I rewatched YGO GX during the first COVID lockdown with my sister and girl it woke something UP in me. In her current iteration, there are.. a lot of similarities... like baby me, she was pretty isolated as a kid but Also Thought Nothing of It; she had a fish out of water moment when she finally did get to be around people her own age normally; she had a lot of anxiety about underperforming when compared to her older sibling (this birthed my favorite thing ever for Lana... the Syrus brotherhood of steel.. i thought syrus SUCKED as a kid so this is personally hysterical)... Once she settles into school, she really does fine in her own regard! but that doesn't stop her from having a Senior Year Disillusionment Moment <3, and it takes her many a few years to get back on her feet after graduation...

i'm looking at Lana like 👀👀👀👀 if you can bounce back so can i!!! so can i bitch!!! 👀👀👀👀

29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?

so considering Gioia literally abandons her entire life to run away with some mystery man and quintessentially go explore some haunted house, without telling anyone... it is Gioia hands down, easy peasy 🤓🤓🤓🤓

I could also see Asa, Thee Primordial Skyrim OC, doing this because she just gets up to this kind of shit accidentally </3 Another OC who would actually do it on purpose would be two of my many Dragon's Dogma OCs: Seveste and Samara! they are twins your honor :] Seveste would do it in pursuit of cool treasure.. Samara would do it to convene with the spirits that haunt the house 😫

39. Introduce any character you want

so I Was going to tell you all about my Dragon's Dogma OCs because they marked the beginning of an Era for my OC creation, and tbh I don't think I'd've gotten to Gioia if not for them, but... I barely have any notes about them and tbh I don't remember the lore enough to actually go into detail about them </3

SO.

I will instead tell you of one of my favorite DD memories and give you a little more info on the aforementioned Mister Seveste! first.. I made him and his sister when I was 15, so. </3 keep this in mind. When I first made him, I wanted to really lean into the thief king idea But I couldn't come up with a name for him.. so I asked my sister for help naming him and she was like Oh! Heinz! because he does Heinous Things!

..............

as u can tell, I Did Not Name Him Heinz. it's funny in retrospect because my first thought back then was Heinz Doofenshmirtz and I was like, NO!!! HE IS SERIOUS!! >:[ but now, he kind of is a doofenshmirtz-esque character..

This Doofenshmirtz aura stems HEAVILY from one very iconic moment in his playthrough. You can romance basically any character in Dragon's Dogma (my first playthrough iirc i Accidentally Romanced the innkeeper or quest-giver without knowing it bc i talked to them frequently. girl help!!), so for Seveste's playthrough I decided to properly romance Aelinore, the young wife of the duke, who is. Much Older Than Her :( iirc this romance was written pretty nicely, although I think you do get thrown in prison and whipped for cucking the duke 🥺🥺 It's all worth it because, in the end, you do get Aelinore out of her situation!!

So, Aelinore romance arc concluded! I carried on with the plot, which eventually meant I had to fight the Now Super Aged Duke in his bedchambers.. Important note here, Seveste is a magick archer and iirc he could shoot flaming arrows? And there were many pots of oil in the bedchambers.. so I remember either pouring these pots out all over the floor or just setting them up maybe? all while the old and feeble duke is trying to get a few punches in on mister Seveste.. it was a time

I got it all set up though, and so the most iconic moment of my entire life unfolded... I had Seveste ready a flaming arrow, and then I yelled at this poor old dying fuck, "FIRST I STOLE YOUR WIFE... NOW I STEAL YOUR LIFE!!!" And then I shot the arrow and he blew the FUCK UP <3

My younger sister and I were like OUHHHHHHH!!!!! It's one of my fondest memories to this day XD Whenever I think back on it now, my brain applies a Doofenshmirtz voice to the quote which makes it even more potent!

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you want

all of this has made me want to play Dragon's Dogma again... the second game is coming out soon so maybe I should!! beyond that, MAN.. Something I've realized lately is that I honestly need to start reading more and taking more media in.

Growing up, most of my OCs were basically dolls with enough personality and story to make go mwah mwah with the canon characters in whatever thing I was watching. That, or they were my fucked up little meow meows that I used to RP the Hunger Games or what have you... Between Dragon's Dogma and now, I think they've gained a stronger sense of narrative BUT. Something I've noticed between my more recent major OCs like Lana, Thalis, and Gioia is that they're all a reflection of myself in one way or another. Which is partially fine, everything I ever create will have a bit of me in it somehow yk. But I think they're a little repetitive and I want to branch out more with their personalities and stories.. everyone kind of has a depressed girl era that they crawl out of, which I've written to give myself hope in a personally dark time but.. their depressed girl eras can be Richer! them crawling out of the hole can have more depth!

I want to revamp a lot of the OCs I made in my youth and rewrite their stories, but I think I will expand my own horizons before I do so!

[ladylynse]

Hello, I apologize if you have already answered what I am about to ask. When you write a story how do you develop the plot? And do you ever think about plot holes? If so how do you prevent those?

Hi, Anon. Thanks for asking!

I start with my idea. Sometimes it’s as simple as “it would be hilarious if Maddie saw Phantom get hit with the Booo-merang when she knows it reacts to her son”. Sometimes it’s a paragraph or two or ten of random ideas smushed together(technical term)--this is more or less the stage my DPxML fic is at. There’s a lot of me going, “Oooh, this would be fun” or “ooh, or I could do this”, and I’ll actually talk to myself like that in my notes. It’s long, ramble-y, grammatically incorrect, and basically the equivalent of me brainstorming some sort of initial idea, the root of the story. (I’m already rambling, so the rest of the answer will be under a read more.)

I then start doing a bit of research on stuff I’ll need to write the story. Depending on how long I’ve been in a fandom, this can be very basic stuff (people’s names) to more specific things (what day does Adrien have fencing?) and will always include some sort of cheat sheet for myself if the characters use slang (like Randy. And Jake.). If I come up with any ideas--or potential ideas--while doing that, I jot them down. Even if it’s a couple lines of dialogue or a way to end a scene, at some point, if I can write that scene into the story (eg Gwaine saw Merlin’s eyes glow gold.) All of this starts in my initial fic document and eventually gets moved to a scrap file associated with that fic. Do not delete ideas/scenes/dialogue/anything even if you aren’t currently using it. You might be able to recycle them into a different fic or later in the current story.

Then I start writing. To see if it’ll work. Even if I don’t have a very clear idea of where things are going yet, and certainly no idea of the end. Sometimes I need to try a few different ways to start a story (Reflections went through various iterations. Mockingbird and my DPxML fic are still in that stage) before I find one that seems to flow. That’s when I look at the situation the characters are in (or about to be in) and try to figure out their actions and reactions to the stuff I’m putting them through. And then I try to let that drive the plot. It’s something I’ve gotten better at over time--making it less obvious that the characters are doing that because that’s the way I want the story to go--but my best plots tend to be character-driven. (This may or may not help you avoid some plot holes. Depends on what the plot hole is. It’ll hopefully help you cut down on the “well, why didn’t they do that like they always do?” sort.)

If you need a character to do something that’s not in character for your plot to go the way you want, you need to give them a reason to act out of character (eg Danny not telling Jake his secret because there’s a paranormal studies/ghost hunters convention in town--and because Jazz keeps ragging on him). If you can’t give them that reason, then you need to find another way to achieve what you want to happen without them doing that--or change your initial idea for the plot. Even if you start with a plan in mind, you will probably have to tweak it at some point. This is normal. You’re just adapting to your story. Sometimes, a story will get away on you--it’ll write itself in a direction you weren’t expecting or past the point where you’d initially figured it would end (hello, Treachery)--but, at least in my experience, if it’s the characters driving the story that way, and you let them, it can actually turn out to be a better story than what you’d initially planned. (Again: Treachery. The unplanned part ie second half is much better than the planned part.) It’s just a matter of keeping them reasonably in character so that things don’t get too out of hand. 

I only think about plot holes once I notice them. Honestly, I’ve gotten good at patching. If something doesn’t occur to me, I can’t prevent writing it in. It’s not so much plot hole prevention for me as adaptation of the story to make it more acceptable once I realize it’s there.

Sometimes, when I’m editing a chapter or rereading something to remind myself of the story thus far/what’s happened, I’ll see something that doesn’t work that I’d missed before. (Random note on the ‘remembering what’s happened’ bit: if you plan a long fic taking place over multiple days, do yourself a favour and make a timeline for yourself in your scrap file. So much easier. That’ll allow you to make accurate references like “last week” and “three days ago”. I did this with Shattered and regretted nothing.) Once I notice a plot hole, I consider the damage. Have I posted something where it’s already stated? If I haven’t, repairing it typically isn’t that hard, though of course it depends on what it is--you just need to give it some justification, shaky or otherwise, or do a bit of rewriting to patch it up. Once it’s firmly written in and you don’t notice it until chapters later, your best bet is writing in justification for it later. In some cases, this involves you turning your plot hole into a plot point. It may be a small plot point or it might be a significant one that will actually shift your intended story a little bit. I did this a lot with my earlier Doctor Who crossovers. I got quite good at retroactive patching there, and my plot hole turned into foreshadowing, although in all fairness all of those involved time travel to one degree or another so that made things a bit easier; I didn’t have to stick to the rules of the actual universe. 

So here’s a plot hole of mine that’s recent that you might have noticed if you’ve read Down the Rabbit Hole: the note on Toby’s bed. Why...why are they communicating that way? Why go to the trouble of sending a note to him that way? Why not just phone or text or email? I missed that initially. And now I see it. And now I have justification (that hasn’t yet appeared in-fic) for not communicating by normal 21-century means. Depending on how things go, it might be hinting at something bigger, or it might just be a small one-off thing.

Now, in case you’re interested in my disaster of a ‘planning paragraph’, this was how Masks began--and please bear in mind I’d seen ten episodes, subbed, at this point and wasn’t entirely sure on what stuff was called:

Blademaster. Fights with knives. Unless it’s someone fromAdrien’s fencing class; the transformation could make that thing deadly sharp.That’s better, actually. Go with that. Marinette actually beats Adrien to thetransformation because she was skulking around waiting for him to come outafter class/lesson/club/whatever it is is over (to just ‘happen to be there’and try to ask him to catch a movie or something in casual conversation) andheard the commotion, while he got caught up in the fleeing people beforemanaging to sidestep and transform. Ladybug hasn’t managed to get the swordaway from Blademaster in the meantime and nearly gets the cord of her luckycharm thing cut for her trouble. Chat Noir shows up and pretty much fences withhis quarterstaff thing until Blademaster starts to cheat, at which point hevaults over him and tags him from behind, hoping the distraction is enough forLadybug to free herself from whatever she ended up in. Evil moth guy isdemanding the gems, so Blademaster starts trying to take a slice out of ChatNoir, who evades rather than parries, trying to draw Blademaster awayfrom…something…and Ladybug takes over when he’s backed into a corner and needsto turn to scale the wall. She yells at him to get the something away if he’sfigured out what Blademaster is after—she hasn’t, yet; just that the blade isprobably what the akuma is in—and Adrien, being there for the transformation,knows exactly what happened and can oblige. But he isn’t long out the door whenhe hears Ladybug scream; Blademaster had either grabbed another blade orsomehow acquired something sharp—I’ve never fenced; I’m not entirely sure howsharp those things are—and while avoiding one blow, she jolted off the courseof the other and got her earlobe sliced off/the gem ripped out. Blademaster hasa gem—moth guy is rejoicing and demanding he now get the other one—andMarinette, with one hand clamped to her ear, has to get out of there despitethe pain because as much as she needs to get Tikki (?) back, she doesn’t wantto risk her identity and—more importantly—she’s not sure how much longer shecan remain upright. She hits the change room or office or something, aiming fora first aid kit or at least a wad of toilet paper, and Chat Noir is shocked theLadybug is gone. He manages to defeat Blademaster and retrieve her gem, but itis inactive, and while he manages to catch the dark butterfly in a fencingmask, he doesn’t have the means to banish its evil OR to erase the ill that hashappened here; that’s Ladybug’s turf. But how is he supposed to return hergem—return her—when he doesn’t knowwho she is, and his own transformation is wearing off? (Marinette will bepulling a new hairstyle or modelling a hat or just plain skipping school—ifthere IS school; what day was fencing class again?—and getting Alya to coverfor her with her parents on the pretence that she’s trying to work up thecourage to do something with Adrien, perhaps, and she really doesn’t want tohave that conversation with her mom,when in reality she’s just trying to find Tikki. Not sure what happened withTikki, exactly. Needs to regain energy, which Plagg (?) would know and informChat Noir accordingly, but with them trying to keep secrets from each other….)

and that will give way to notes like this:

Tikki, PlaggMiracle Stones/MiraculousHawkmoth

Ladybug – lucky charm at end, always ends up with somethingshe doesn’t know what to do with at first and then figures it out; yo-yocompact; BOTH EARRINGS for the miracle stones…but maybe ripping one out woulddeactivate the other. She is the ONLY ONE who can cleanse the akumas. Chat Noir – (allergic to feathers), ancient destruction/cataclysm; batonYeah, if that ring comes off, the Kwami is forced out and the detransformationis right awayPlagg is SUCH a glutton, he’ll even chase after stuff he thinks is food

----

Okay. Adrien picks up Tikki and Miracle Stone, so Marinettefinds nothing and tries to track down Chat Noir, but Tikki, once recovered, canjust tell Adrien who Marinette is. Problem solved. That’s not fun. Unless Tikkidecides to respect Marinette’s wishes?

Or maybe they each find one earring, and Tikki isn’t wellbecause they’re divided?

Adrien and Marinette can both find nothing—Marinette because she hasn’t achance to look, Adrien because he doesn’t know TO look—but unless Tikki’strapped there, she gotta be able to get out.

Wait, Adrien’s chivalrous. He’ll respect Ladybug’s wishes.Even if he hates it

----

If Plagg can’t see, when they transform, Adrien won’t beable to see, either.

“What do you mean, I can’t transform?”“If we transform, this thing would get sucked in, too, and you won’t be able to do anything.” [lines from the Rogercop episode]

Statue set on green stone (granite?) with the top edgejutting out about chin height for Adrien

-------------------------Nope, gonna have to go back and change Blademaster’s restoration to Phillipebecause that DOES seem to be after Ladybug’s restoration. [turns out I was right the first time with this, but I’d checked with someone else and they’d thought no one changed back until after the Miraculous Ladybug bit, so I’d changed my initial plans here, and a few months later we got an episode that confirmed that, no, the magic link just needs to be broken, things don’t need to be fixed yet.]

[madeleinepractices]

Creative Problem-Solving Interviews

I interviewed three professionals, all in different industries to see how they approach their inspiration and problem solving processes in their careers. Each person’s approach is entirely different and suited to their professional needs, which I was definitely inspired by, myself. Below are my collections:

Dr. M Bernadette Sanchez, DDS Private Dentistry Practice Owner

1. Since I’m a creative person, I’m always looking at how we can evolve with our environment at the office. My inspiration for this is making human contact with another individual. Doesn’t have to be about teeth, its just what’s going on in your life how are you doing what’s the latest. So it's a really interpersonal relationship with our patients. With staff I want to create the same evolution in their purpose. In the end, my patients, staff, and life experiences inspire me.

If I pick up negative energy from, especially staff, my flow doesn’t stop but it requires more strategy. More energy and consideration goes into my process. Whenever you solve a problem that deals with a person or group, the way you identify the need really needs to be spoken with a lot of care and sensitivity in that we aren’t trying to get people defensive. You have to make the idea resonate with them, like they could’ve thought of it themselves.

2. If there’s a problem, I ask myself whose problem is it? If it is a problem that only triggers me, I try to identify why I have the reaction that I do. Then I decide how urgent it is compared to other problems I'm dealing with. Then I brainstorm possible solutions. If it isn’t a sensitive problem, I involve my staff to collaborate, especially if it is a problem affecting our workflow at the office. Is it a quick response solution or more of a long term solution? Do we have resources now or will we have to invest in resources over time to address it? If it's possible for other team members to take ownership while solving a challenge, there’s usually more pride in being part of the solution. 

This same kind of process applies to patients too. There’s a whole psychology to certain issues. If a patient is in pain, I validate their feelings, face to face and level with them emotionally. I ask leading questions like, "what can I do” “what solutions have you tried.” I ask if they’ve had a bad experience if they are very apprehensive. I make sure to build a rapport and communicate what is going on during procedures to put them at ease. It's important to not make people feel like they have no options, especially when it comes to healthcare so I don’t press for quick big decisions, but instead address immediate needs as well as I can before our next appointment. 

Working toward the right solution for a patient is the point of dentistry, so we troubleshoot as much as possible before finalizing a treatment plan, to ensure that their treatment is right the first time. If a patient is dissatisfied, we apologize and acknowledge their time and reassess the situation. Referrals are always an option as well!

***

Rene H. Sanchez, MS, CISM, CBCP Manager, Information Security Risk Management University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

I seek to understand the problem, look to understand the environment, and to do that there’s customer engagement. Stepping inside their world to understand what they experience related to the issue at hand. The customer leads me to where I need to look for ideas. Our stakeholders ultimately inform how we build data security standards into business processes. When we understand a business process, we are then able to ask the tech questions. What IT and tech run a business? Sometimes that involves institutional software apps that manage biz tech. Sometimes it involves a family of app software systems and associated tech infrastructure.

What inspires me is engaging and learning with the customer, we collectively shape solutions together. That empowerment and transference of ownership that I find rewarding, inspiring, and a source of energy that drives the interest in providing solutions for more customers. It gives the entire team this energy. I try to plant a seed of thought initially with my team as to possible solutions as a starting point, then involve the team to reflect and build and pivot on that initial thought. Doing good work in this industry thrives in team perspective and engaging those perspectives. Perspective is so important in the ideation stage. You have to engage the individual because you value their perspective. Everyone on my team has differing perspectives making them invaluable to any discussion, leveling up the positive and creative energy throughout the team and ultimately to the client.

There are often situations where convention can get in the way of reaching the goal. Convention presents often in the form of industry vernacular, or which gets crossed and confused when different stakeholders cross thoughts and ideas. 

Things we encounter sometimes come down to non adherence to standards and conventions when it comes to bringing different systems together. This can get in the way of major data migrations or data immigration, causing project plans not being met or delays. 

In cases like this we go back to idea generation. High risk, high impact. I still find energy in that. Where does the problem lie? We analyze past performance data, identifying failure points, helping us zero in on a problem area. Involve auditors to do due diligence on areas we missed to make sure all parties have similar data standards and norms. Then we identify what it will take to fix the identified issues immediately or over time. Negotiate the purchase price of this solution. It's all a very logic based process. In the end this creates team engagement, enablement and empowerment in a solution.

***

Ben Alcaraz, University Instructor

1. I put pen to paper, sketching, quick iterations and thumbnails. I look at my students’ products and challenge their point of view to bring about stronger results. I am inspired by the students’ motivation to do better with each iteration. Their commitment to each step of a project is admirable. I am inspired by others’ drive and motivation like that. It isn't hard for me to be inspired, its kind of an ongoing experience of being inspired. It is also an active process — I try to be inspired by new ways of approaching color and others’ work with color helps be bring ideas to class and to work. A class’ prescribed curriculum can feel limiting, so I have to make it unique to me. How do I make my class a “Ben” class? I try to overcome this by being true to my nature and creative sensibilities and thought processes and trying to impart that. on my students. Combining my approach and my logic with my students’ individual approaches makes for a unique class experience. 

2. Talking through a prompt, sketching, visual and tactile explorations help guide my problem solving journey. Asking questions to my students helps me isolate struggle areas as well. Posing questions to the larger group and staying receptive helps me solve student problems, which are the main kind of issues I face in my work.

I believe that in class a problem is usually solvable through asking the right questions, and ultimately navigating my students through their own processes without necessarily handing them directions or answers. My job is to guide them, not solve their problems. 

[dorothydelgadillo]

Why You Need to Know What Problem You're Solving for Every Single Design Project

Designers. We are all elusive, creative geniuses right?

Well of course we are, but I’ll let you in on a little secret, we weren’t born this way.

Design is a skill. Sure, it comes with plenty of gut feelings and innate talent, but the best designers aren’t strictly artists, they’re also great critical thinkers.

The best designers understand how to identify a problem and use their skills to solve it in the best way possible for the user.

Problems Are The Secret to Good Design

No matter what the project, identifying the goal or problem is a must.

If there is no problem to solve, you’ve set your designer off on a directionless path that may produce visually beautiful results, but lacks intention.

Here at IMPACT, we see this time and time again with brands who come to us for website redesigns.

Their sites look amazing! Some serious attention to detail has been put into each pixel that completely delivers aesthetically.  

But while it may deliver visually, it completely lacks in user-oriented solutions.

These websites usually have some similar traits:

They use a lot of “we” as opposed to “you” phrasing

The order of on-page elements serves to highlight the brand (awards, press-releases, products), as opposed to helping the user alleviate their pain points as quickly as possible

They aren’t converting leads, and why would they since they are focused on what a brand offers versus how they can help

Because there was no specific problem identified at the beginning of the design phase, the designer simply created a beautiful online brochure that never had any intention of helping the user solve a problem or in turn, helping the brand achieve a goal.

The intention of any website should be the same every time: solve for the user.

Without the user, there would be no need for design at all. You need to make sure your website or project’s aim is to deliver answers and value to the user.

But, solving for the user is trickier than it sounds. To do it effectively, you must understand your user, their wants, needs, and most importantly the desires they don’t know they have.

So, how do you even begin going about solving for the users unknown intentions?

Well, I’m glad you asked...

Tackling Design Problems

What is a design problem exactly?

Design problems aren’t your average dilemmas In fact, they usually have a single component that sets them apart from all others: the need to solve for unconscious desires.

One of the most famous examples of this is Henry Ford upon building the Model T. He said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Ford understood that horses were too slow, but that wasn’t the problem to be solved. There was a much deeper need that his customers couldn’t articulate because they couldn’t fathom the solution.

Design problems focus on the user’s purpose, not just the unwelcome pain or situation.

Ford ultimately understood that his customers needed to get from one place to another faster.

This unique distinction helped him create something that didn’t exist rather than improve what already was.

Framing the Problem

Once the problem is identified, you need to give it context in order to fully understand it.

Framing a problem with a statement narrow enough will bring focus to a designer, but it also needs to be broad enough for creativity.

When a problem is properly framed and deeply seeded in your user’s purpose, you can easily see the types of barriers that are in the way of reaching your ultimate goal.

Better yet, it acts as a very necessary filter. It rules out the superfluous and irrelevant ideas (you know, the “make it pop” ones?) and only allows room for ideas that meet the user’s needs.

Framing problems also brings a shared perspective. When everyone is working towards the same goal, the process becomes more efficient.

So, how do you get started framing a problem effectively?

You gather your stakeholders and you ask four simple questions:

Who is affected? Who is experiencing the problem and how specific can we describe them?

What is the problem? What are the struggles and what ultimately needs to be accomplished? Are there pain points that need to be relieved?

Where does it happen? What context does the user experience this problem?

Why does it matter? Why is this a problem worth solving and what value does this bring to the user?

All of these questions will lead you to the goal of creating a problem statement.

Problem Statements

Problem statements are kind of like MadLibs, structured sentences with blank spaces to fill with your specific insights.

This “template” helps to create a statement that is concise, but also fully rooted in your own research.

Remember, you want to be specific enough to share a vision of the solution, but be broad enough to allow for creativity.

Here are two examples:

From the point of view of the user:

“I am (persona) trying to (verb), but (pain point or barrier) because (a specific cause) which makes me feel (emotional response).

From user research:

“(Persona) needs a way to (user’s need) because (insight from research).”

Every single problem statement should always be human-entered. Every problem is about the people you are trying to help, first and foremost.

Technology and revenue are byproducts of great problem statements that have led to the most innovative of solutions.

So, how do we ensure that we are approaching every design project with a problem to solve?

We utilize the Design Thinking methodology.

I know, breaking design down to a methodology feels weird; it lacks all that creative edge, but hear me out.

What Is Design Thinking?

Stay with me, I’m going to break down the “why” and the “what” of this process, so you can go back and determine the “how” for your organization.

Design Thinking is a methodology that can be applied to more than just design.

It  is a methodology used for both practical and creative problem solving that is user-centric, existing to focus on humans.

It seeks to understand a user’s needs and determine the most effective solutions to meet those needs.

You can think of it as a solution-based approach to problem solving.

What Is the Design Thinking Process?

As you can likely conclude, the Design Thinking process is meant to be both iterative and highly user-centric.

It consists of four principles and five phases.

The Four Principles of Design Thinking

These four principles were laid out by Chistophy Meinel and Harry Leifer of the Hasso-Plattner-Institute of Design at Stanford University, California. You can access their full research here.

  1. The Human Rule

Design is a response to the user’s social circumstance; a decision made based on usually negative consequences endured by someone. Any innovation to this will still require action from someone trying to solve for the user first.

  2. The Ambiguity Rule

Ambiguity is inevitable and this cannot be removed or oversimplified. Experimenting at the limits of your knowledge and ability is crucial in being able to see things differently when faced with it.

  3. The Redesign Rule

All design is redesign. While technology and social circumstances may change and evolve, basic human needs remain unchanged. We only redesign the means of fulfilling these needs.

  4. The Tangibility Rule

Making ideas tangible in the form of prototypes enables designers to communicate them more effectively. (Think of this as the “I’ll know it when I see it” rule!)

Now, if you really think about and embrace them, these principles are quite liberating.

With them, as the problem solver, you’re free from the pressures of having to have the exact right answer every single time you approach a problem.

This set of principles is specific, but doesn’t tell you how to go about solving the problem.

They establish guidelines that need to be met, but allow the problem solver to experiment, embrace naysayers, stay humble, and most importantly, stay focused on solving for the user.

The principle set is specific without

The Five Phases of Design Thinking

Based on the four principles above, the process of Design Thinking can be equated to five steps or “phases” as per the aforementioned Hasso-Plattner-Institute of Design at Stanford.

  Phase 1: Empathize

Empathy is the critical starting point for Design Thinking. As a problem solver, you have to understand the needs of your users.

What do they want? What do they need? What are they trying to solve for themselves?

Set your own personal assumptions aside and collect data about your users on an emotional level. Suspend your own view of the world around you and see it through your user’s eyes.

Trying to replicate their emotional journey, do you understand where their frustrations lie?

The ultimate goal is to better understand your user’s motivations and that isn’t always obvious. It requires an extreme effort to observe your users with a blank mindset and a genuine curiosity to understand “why.”

  Phase 2: Define the Problem

What you may have had in mind as “the problem” could have changed entirely after the Empathize phase.

In the Emphasize phase, we analyzed everything we observed and discovered into smaller components: what, why, and how.

In the define stage, we bring those smaller components back together to synthesize our findings to create a highly detailed overall picture.

This overall picture is your ultimate design challenge and the first step to creating a well-defined problem statement.

Problem statements (we’ll focus more on these later in the article, they are extremely important!) Frame the problem or need in a way that is actionable for designers.

  Phase 3: Ideate

This is where all that elusive, creative genius happens.

In a strict, judgement-free zone, problem solvers will identify as many new angles and ideas for a solution as they can muster.

Sometimes the right call might be brainstorming, or mind mapping, or sketching, the possibilities are limitless. Ideating is different for every designer and every organization.

But what’s the same is that at the end of this session, you should have your ideas narrowed down to a handful you can move forward with.

  Phase 4: Prototype

This phase is all about tangibility.

You’ll want to experiment with how to best implement the solutions found in the previous stages and actually create a tangible product that you can test.

We call this a prototype. It allows designers to showcase their work through an interactive and engaging product resulting in a much better understanding of the solution for everyone involved.

How far you take your prototype is up to you, but to get the most value out of these phases, it may be best to have the prototype be usable and not just conceptual.

Here is an example from proto.io. As a potential user, you can click around inside of the mobile device to see how the site would potentially function on mobile.

This step can actually be comprised of many steps. Just because you’ve prototyped an idea doesn’t mean it stands as is. Continue to experiment and challenge your solution.

You may quickly find that some ideas are best left in this stage, while others merit enough of a refined solution to move on to Phase 5.

  Phase 5: Test

After finally landing on a few prototypes that you feel are indicative of the best solution possible, send it out into the wild!

You’ll want to test your prototypes to see if they hold up to all of your assumptions.

Testing can be a tricky phase. yYou’ll want to make sure your test is planned, your participants have been properly vetted as the best subjects for testing, and then you’ll want to have a plan in place for how to analyze your data and inform next steps.

Often you’ll find that this phase takes you back to one of the previous phases. That isn’t a defeat! It’s simply narrowing down the problem and potential solutions.

If your tests are successful, congratulations! You’ve solved for the user in the most effective way possible. You’ll likely move on to finalizing the product and launching it in the “real world.”

Even if you make it to a successful launch, however, keep your head in this phase. Design can always be improved upon, and don’t forget you’ll need to change your solution based on social circumstances.

Always be testing and always be trying to find the next solution.

  It’s a Non-Linear Process

While there may appear to be a very linear sequence to these phases, you can often find yourself looping back and around these phases. With every new discovery, you may need to challenge phases you already thought were set in stone.

The only rule is to keep a user-first mentality.

Why Does This Matter?

I know, we’ve listed a lot of fancy terms and methodologies, and all of that is great and maybe some of it is even clicking. But honestly, why does this matter so much?

Your website exists solely for your users. Let that sink in.

Your website isn’t your crowning glory. It’s not there for your sales team, it’s not there for your CEO, and it certainly isn’t there for your marketing team.

Your website must solve your users’ problems.

When a user lands on your website, they are there to help alleviate a very specific pain point. Is your content, design, and overall UX focused on helping your users?

If it isn’t, take a step back.

Think about all of the principles and phases we’ve discussed in this article.

You can’t start trying to solve for you user until you have a complete understanding of your user’s behavior, their desires, and their needs. You have to define this as the problem you are trying to solve.

Otherwise, you are never going to design a solution that alleviates their pain points.

If you approach your next website redesign as simply a task, telling your designer, “you’re the expert, go make it fabulous” you aren’t only doing your business a disservice by ignoring your users specific pain points, but you’ve taken the stance that your potential customers aren’t worth a tailored solution.

We designers are visual problem solvers. Not just task takers who will make things look and work the way you want them to.

If you don’t allow your designer to help identify and solve a problem for your user’s, you’re wasting their potential as critical thinkers. More importantly you’re wasting your design spend on a product that will not achieve your goals.

Would you do that for a marketing plan? For PPC activity? For a social campaign?

Absolutely not.

Stop talking to your designer as “one of those creatives” who just knows Photoshop well. Start involving them in discussions about your users.

Ask them to explain how they arrived at certain solutions and work together to creative problem statements moving into creative redesigns.

Take these principles back to your co-workers and brainstorm ways to implement them into new or existing processes.

Caring deeply for and about your users will always create the best possible product.

Don’t design without understanding your problem statement. Seriously, don’t.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/why-you-need-to-know-what-problem-youre-solving-for-every-single-design-project

[davidbaker1095-blog]

2 Minute Survival Game: Week 1 Review

Hi Everyone! This is the first of a series of weekly review posts I plan to write. The point of these posts is to act as an opportunity for the reader to easily catch up on what I've been up to in the past week and to give myself a chance to reflect and potentially find new lessons and takeaways from my experiences. I will return to some content that I posted earlier in the week but there should also be new content that I didn't share at the time whether this be brand new stuff or more details on what I've posted before. I hope that you, as the reader, can take something from these posts as well. To help me in that, feel free to let me know what you think I should be talking about during these posts. They will be sure to evolve over the weeks as I get fully into project work so it's a perfect time for me to make changes you want as well.

This week marked the start of my first post university project. The reasons why I chose to kick off this project were that I wanted to directly invest time in my passions for content creation, I wanted to build my portfolio as a game developer and I wanted to find ways to stretch myself and my skillsets. It was a really great time for me to start because my previous project, Bees Won't Exist, which has been my main project for the past 12 months, finally collapsed under the weight of the artificial barriers and lack of personal interest that key team members were feeling. I then had a large project shaped hole in my life. Bees Won't Exist had partially become a chore because of artificial issues, such as people, including myself, doggedly avoiding work where we didn't want to do it and then didn't want to do too much work on the project generally less we destroy our social lives and work life balance. Looking back, this was a pretty unhealthy state to be in. Game development should be fun and, personally, I should want to get up and delve into that creative environment which was not the case. I was locking myself into Scrum Master and QA roles without the desire to actually create the content. So one of my aims with this project was to have fun creatively and fully jump into all areas of the project.

As to what the project would be, all I knew initially was that the game would be super small. One of the biggest lessons I learned last year was that over scoping (i.e. making your project bigger than the team can reasonably deliver) is a killer of projects, and if not the whole project then at least the happiness of developers. I think it's great to dream big and be ambitious but you can't deliver what you don't have resources to deliver whether that be through a lack of people, time or technology. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted the player to be able to finish the experience in around 2 minutes. Some people would call that restriction arbitrary but I find it a good way of measuring an amount of content that I felt comfortable committing to.

This is the point at which the brainstorm I shared this week came in. The brainstorm acted as a vehicle in which I could start noting criteria I wanted the project to satisfy and then put down ideas and constraints as they came to me. This was great because as the process panned out, I ended up thinking about what types of games I wanted to make at a high level which brought me to why I am a developer in the first place.

The short version is that I believe that interactive entertainment is the next great form of expression and I want to help push further into that potential than anyone else has done before. I don't think that interactive entertainment will reach its peak in my lifetime because I feel that will only happen once interactive entertainment occurs in virtual reality indistinguishable from our own. We are a long way off that for now but maybe I'll be surprised. I feel like, given acceptance of that, It is still very possible to pre-establish some of the methodologies and techniques that will be used to make the best games at that time. So in short I want to help find the way to make interactive experiences of the highest quality, not compared to what we have already seen but what there will be full stop. To bring this down to what I am doing now, did it ever cross my mind that this new project would meet that goal necessarily? No. This is still a really early project in my career but I think it should be formative at least.

Anyway, what I ran with from that thought line during my brainstorming was that some of the best experiences I have come across were in the form of narratives. They had compelling beginnings, middles and ends. There is a problem with narratives in that they can stretch out a game as you try to set up each narrative stage properly and earn strong pay offs. I thought I'd try to tackle this though while still keeping the game short. One way I would like to do this is through limiting the number of narrative stages to something like Beginning -> Problem -> Climax -> Resolution. The other option Apart from a narrative focused experience, the other option I had for structuring the game was to try to establish a strong game loop and then a strong meta loop. I do want to make this type of game eventually, because I feel it is certainly a strong model. For this project though I had already became intrigued with the idea of a really short narrative game before I had fleshed out the possibilities for the second structure.

The next questions I tackled were around genre, art style and sound. I probably spent less time thinking about these then I could have, possibly a sign of my inexperience, but in the end I came up with answers pretty quickly. I had started thinking about the horror genre pretty early and this lead onto the theme of survival. I liked that because I thought there was an interesting juxtaposition between the boundary of a really short game and the theme of survival. Survival narratives are usually drawn out over a period of tougher and tougher odds because that steady rising of tension, and maybe even the drain of holding on can lead to a stronger payoff at the end. A 2 minute survival game wouldn't have that luxury and, if it was narrative based, I would have to execute really well in order to make it work. That kind of really strong execution on a really small amount of content is far more appealing to me than trying to effectively execute on a lot of content to a passable state. It allows for quicker production times with greater room for iteration and improvement as well. The choice of art style was mostly directed by my lack of art experience. I knew the art would have to be minimalistic in order to not overstretch myself and maintain a higher level of quality. I liked the idea of pixel art because that can be really simple or really complex and still be beautiful with a whole area of grey in-between. The choice of the survival genre along with the art style of pixel art seemed like it would be an interesting combination as well. As for sound, I wanted the games music and sound effects to add to the intensity of the experience, especially later on, and I wanted it to drive the urgency of each decision.

In order to keep the narrative interactive, I decided that I wanted to allow for the effect of choices on how the narrative turned out which effectively required a branching narrative. It took me a solid amount of time to work out how I was going to do that and keep the number of branches reasonable, as evidenced by the maths on the brainstorm, but in the end I decided that having three possible states in each narrative stage (death, advantage and disadvantage) would allow for about 10 states overall which is a level of content I would be happy to tackle. Allowing the player to die at any given stage of the narrative, and restart instantly, allowed for a kind of gameplay loop as well. And so the outline of the experience came into being. The player would start at the beginning of the narrative and then make choices according to their situations in order to try to reach the next stage. At each stage they would either die, gain an advantage for the next stage or gain a disadvantage for the next stage.  In order to keep each decision short I decided I would experiment with manually limiting the amount of time that the player would have to make a choice at each stage. Not making a choice in time would be counted as a choice and could potentially disadvantage the player. I think that something like building music could be a great vehicle for telling the player they only have so much time to make a choice without force feeding them through a timer.

All of that content and decision making came out of the initial brainstorming. After writing all of that, I realise that this post is going to be HUGE if I maintain the same content to activity reflection ratio. For the rest of the post, and probably future posts, I will try to keep it more succinct and cut out the unnecessary stuff I'm leaving the existing stuff in though because I think it was a really important part of the design process for me on this project. Going in I didn't have much but motivation. Going out I had a loose game design. Let me know if you totally agree with that plan or think it's fine as is.

Next came the creation of a lot of the design document. It's currently sitting around 12 pages. I probably didn't need to make it quite that big but it did help me flesh out all of the elements of the game. One of the sections of the document, the "Typical Player Experience" section, ended up being a great piece of material for sharing at the time. The first part of it was shared through social media to gauge the response of my network and I managed to get some feedback from various comments.

The feedback was fairly positive. I'm not sure whether this is from my network being nice to me or whether the content actually stands up. I'm assuming it's a mix of both. When I handed the paragraph to people to read, I never got a blank expression or obvious disinterest. It is probably what I would expect to get from someone after telling them an above average campfire horror story. I'm fairly happy with that at this stage although I will be sure not to settle. Online, one comment discussed the fact that it is important to grab the reader's attention early and that the piece I posted had done that to an extent given that it represented the start of the game. Another said the game would be good in Virtual Reality. I thought that last comment was interesting because, in the piece I posted, I hadn't alluded to the 2D pixel art style I had planned, and the comment suggested that they had envisioned it in fully immersive 3D. This is probably down to the fact that text leaves a lot to the imagination but I was interested to see that the game could be so easily imagined in that way. Perhaps there's room for a VR version in the future? In any case, It showed me a new side to the process of using a written typical player experience and how powerful it could be for drawing insights.

Finally for this week, I managed to engage in a discussion with a sound orientated peer of mine about the 2 minute survival game. One of the interesting things he said to me was that, as the game starts fairly innocently, he would consider using a different track for the start to the rest of the game in my shoes. The first track would be fairly subdued but as soon as the problem stage started it would become more intense, ominous and urgent. Another suggestion he made was that I use the music to create urgency in the game through speeding it up over time until the point where each decision was made or not made. I think either of these ideas could work if executed well and I will be sure to explore them when I get to implementing the game's sound.

That's it for now! To give you an idea of what I will be tackling next week, I expect to cover things like creating a feature list, setting up project management software and starting to implement fundamental features in a build. Those last two activities should be quite visual so hopefully I will be able to share content as I go and make the week 2 review more interesting to look at.