In this lesson, we're going to now look at convergent techniques. I'm just going to take us to that formula for creativity: *structure plus diversity*. So, on the left, we've got the problem – the thing that we're looking for solutions to. We've then got this – and on the right the solution. The initial stages we've been thinking about are these divergent stages,
the jumps of insight, and the bad idea is a particular example of that. But then we need to go and sort of tighten down towards a single solution because in the end what we've got to do is deliver to somebody, whether it's a piece of software or whether it's a design, but something that actually solves the need and can be used. In fact, if we think about a divergent thinker, we're thinking about somebody who's creative, who thinks differently, who's perhaps exciting or interesting,
maybe just a little mad, but in some way perhaps a positive image from a creativity point of view. However, if we think about *convergent thinking*, it feels actually *conservative*; it feels *uncreative*; it's all about the sameness, about plodding and about going down the same paths, maybe just a little bit boring. It seems like there's a gulf between the two, as if there couldn't be any connection between them.
But in fact, if anything, that's far from the truth; the two actually are all about *working together*. What we'll do is going to remind ourselves about some of the reasons why we might want divergence in the first place, and that will help us to see why convergent thinking is also very, very important. So, let's first of all – why do we need divergence? Actually, the answer is *sometimes you don't* – you don't need to always be a divergent thinker.
Sometimes, the ant-like plodding from place to place works. You might have a problem. There might be a standard process that gives you a solution that everybody's happy with. You know – if that's the case, no need to have lots of bright wild ideas; you just do the same thing. For instance – you know – somebody comes to you; they're wanting a new website for a trucking company, and you happen to have a few years ago done – a different trucking company; you take the general
pattern for that, you reapply it to a new one, and everybody's happy. Easy peasy. Of course, we know that design doesn't always work like that. Sometimes there is no obvious right solution. To talk about 'the solution', there's *a* solution, not necessarily the right solution, and often what we do in design is we start with a problem, generate lots of different initial ideas, and then just sort of have a feel of how good they are – you know. And some you might instantly reject and
say 'that's terrible', others you think 'oh yes, that's really good', others a bit in between. There are lots of these times when we have to generate lots of different ideas and then make decisions between them. There's another time when we need divergence as well, though, which is when we get to a problem. So, sometimes we start with a problem – well, we always have a problem; we have our initial need; we think we know where the solution is. So, for instance, imagine our website again. We've got a standard theme and way of building websites that we use time and time again.
Somebody comes with a new need for a website. We think, 'That's fine. We'll just put it into our standard framework.' So, you start off with your standard process, you think it's going to work, you start with it ...and then you get stuck. Something happens in the middle; there is some problem, some technical issue, some aesthetic issue that actually blocks you. So, for instance, you might be using your standard theme to your website, but maybe it's designed implicitly assuming that there was never a huge category with lots and lots of pages in.
And for some reason maybe it's lots of products or something like that – you end up with one of these categories and the menu ends up with lots and lots of items – so many that it doesn't fit on the page, and there's no nice way to scroll, and you think, 'Ah! It's failing!' And then what you do is you start to think of alternate ideas. You might start to look at other frameworks, other themes. Some of those will encounter problems as well, but eventually you try and find something that is not your original idea of how you
proceed but gets you to the solution. So, that's another reason why you want divergence. So, what about *convergence*? You know – so, obviously we need divergence. We've got reasons why that might happen. Where does convergence come into this? What we're going to do is start off with those ideas where you have lots and lots of ideas. You've got a problem, you've generated lots of ideas, and then you need to filter them down.
So, part of convergence is about going from all those ideas to *one solution*. One way you do that is simply to look at them, decide some are just non-starters, put those in the bin; progress the others a little bit – you know – develop them a bit more. This is a classic thing you'll have done if you're involved in graphic design, for instance. You often generate lots and lots of ideas, some of them that you decide you don't like, some of them the customer doesn't like, others you start to develop a bit and you look at them in more detail.
Perhaps eventually plump for one of them, generate the solution from that. So, there's the process – there's a bit of extra generation going on, but a lot of it is just about filtering. It's about throwing out and ending up with one of them. *Evaluation is the key to this.* And this is why in user interfaces, a new user experience, evaluation is such an important thing. Sometimes you can't actually work out what you want, so you generate lots of things and then you evaluate them and see which has worked out good.
This has – in one sense, there's a model of creativity that's going on here, which is a variation of this diversity plus structure. It's about *generate and filter*. The diversity is the generation – you generate lots of ideas, and then you filter them down. And this does work, not a hundred percent but quite a lot of creativity can be seen in these terms. So, one way to think about this is about typing monkeys, and you might have heard the story about
if you have enough monkeys or you leave a monkey long enough, eventually it'll type out the complete works of Shakespeare. You might have to wait a very long time for your one monkey. But instead of that, perhaps you don't have one monkey – perhaps you have four monkeys or rooms full of monkeys. So, imagine a warehouse and in the warehouse there's desk after desk after desk. And each day trucks come and throw loads of bananas into the warehouse.
And in the warehouse there is row after row after row after row of typing monkeys. And then there's the *assessor*. And the assessor is a human. And she wanders up and down the rows of monkeys, looking at what they're typing. A lot of the time it's just gibberish. And every so often she comes across something, and perhaps it says, 'To be or not to be. That is the question.' She looks at that and she thinks, 'Wow! That's profound!',
pulls out the sheet of paper from the monkey's typewriter, perhaps puts a new one in for the monkey, then takes it to the warehouse door. And the warehouse has a door with a letterbox on it. Only most letterboxes are for posting things into the house. This is for posting out. So, she takes the piece of paper with 'To be or not to be. That is the question.', folds it up, posts it out through the letterbox. Outside the letterbox – it's a bit like Big Brother House – there's always press people waiting.
And when they see the the sheet of paper pop out, they all pounce on it and look at it. And it says 'To be or not to be. That is the question.' And everybody goes, 'Wow! That's profound! There must be somebody really creative inside that warehouse.' Now, the question just to think about for a second is: Where is the creativity?
Is it in the rows and rows and rows of typing monkeys? —which is the divergent part of this process. Or is it in the assessor who looks at that piece of paper and thinks, 'Oh, that's a good one!'? Is it half and half? Or perhaps if you had either the typing monkeys or you had the assessor on their own, there would be no creativity. It's actually when the two come together. So, let's go back to our filtering and evaluation.
So, one model, I said we have the selection or the evaluation side, which is like our assessor; we have the generation side. Now, in fact, things are never quite that simple. Our generation is not quite like typing monkeys, and our assessment isn't always independent of our generation. Even in this model we've got, if you were doing this, if you've generated lots of ideas and then chosen some of them and tried to develop others, quite likely in your final solution
you will have used elements of both or multiple ideas that you developed. So, you developed two ideas, went forward with them; you might choose one as the dominant one, but you might well use bits of inspiration from the other as you develop that into your solution. Even the ones that you reject quite early in the process, again there might be bits from them that have influenced what you're doing further on. So, it's not quite a matter of just choosing which one.
It's not like that assessor just choosing the best sheet of paper that's got the best words on it, but actually a little bit of a more feedback process going on, even at this stage in this simple model. This takes us to the second kind of convergence, which is about being analytic. So, here again, think about all of these ideas that have been generated. What you also might do, and some of the things we've talked about doing already have elements of this,
is just look at all of those ideas – before you start selecting them, before you choose which ones develop, just look at them and think about them. And as you think about it, you build an understanding of the domain, of the problem space and perhaps of the set of potential solutions; so, you're starting to build this understanding of what's going on. When you've built that understanding, then you're in perhaps a better position to be really clear about what your *criteria* are. So, you might know your criteria upfront.
They might be really simple ones like which is the fastest, which is the most efficient. But often life is a little bit more fuzzy than that, and it's actually only as you understand the problem can you start to formulate your criteria with which you're going to use to choose which ideas to take forward. You might be able to use that understanding to actually ignore the ideas then and jump straight to a solution – say, 'Aha! Given what I've seen with all these ideas, actually now I know how to solve the problem.' And you go off and do it. You might use that understanding to generate new ideas.
And then, of course, from those new ideas you might generate new understanding. So, there's lots of ways you can use that understanding. But crucially, this is part of that process where you take that divergence and use it in order to generate analytic understanding, models, concepts of what's going on. I think of this a bit like a cartographer. So, people have gone out into the field, they've gone in expeditions, they've come back and they've told you
they followed this river, they followed that path, they might have measured heights of mountains and done all sorts of things like that. And then, you're the cartographer and you've drawn the map. Now, you've got the map. Once you've got the map, you can then start to ask questions about, 'Well, if I want to go to somewhere new – somewhere perhaps that none of my individual people have gone to but they've perhaps surrounded in different ways, they've looked at from different directions,
you can start to plot a route on the map. It doesn't mean you won't have problems. There may be, for instance, a narrow chasm that was deep so you can't cross it but just wasn't very apparent to the people. So, it doesn't mean you won't have any problems, but certainly you're in a position to enter that territory in a way with confidence you wouldn't have otherwise. Now, if you think about that in terms of the web design or graphic design problem,
by having an *understanding* of the problem area, suddenly you're able to sometimes jump to that solution or to at least see ways past problems that you can't do just by randomly trying things. So, in a way on its own, what divergence is being like is a divergent creativity on its own with nothing else; it's a bit like playing darts – you know – with a blindfold on. So, you can throw your darts and if you throw enough darts, sure enough, you'll probably hit the dartboard.
When you have that understanding that's come from analysis, it's like playing darts with your eyes wide open.