Join us

Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services

Closes in
04
hrs
24
mins
40
secs
11% booked
Beginner

How This Course Will Help Your Career

What You’ll Learn

  • How to carry out ideation sessions, from first idea to developed concept by using hands-on ideation methods, techniques and tools

  • How to plan and time-manage creative projects to guarantee successful outcomes

  • How to use divergent ideation methods to break out of habitual thinking and generate innovative and useful ideas

  • How to use convergent ideation methods to develop your ideas further and solve creative problems through analytical thinking

  • How to make space for creativity so the ideas come when you need them

  • How to build a creative team environment

The overall goal of this course is to help you design better products, services and experiences by helping you and your team develop innovative and useful solutions. You’ll learn a human-focused, creative design process.

We’re going to show you what creativity is as well as a wealth of ideation methods―both for generating new ideas and for developing your ideas further. You’ll learn skills and step-by-step methods you can use throughout the entire creative process. We’ll supply you with lots of templates and guides so by the end of the course you’ll have lots of hands-on methods you can use for your and your team’s ideation sessions. You’re also going to learn how to plan and time-manage a creative process effectively.

Most of us need to be creative in our work regardless of if we design user interfaces, write content for a website, work out appropriate workflows for an organization or program new algorithms for system backend. However, we all get those times when the creative step, which we so desperately need, simply does not come. That can seem scary—but trust us when we say that anyone can learn how to be creative­ on demand. This course will teach you ways to break the impasse of the empty page. We'll teach you methods which will help you find novel and useful solutions to a particular problem, be it in interaction design, graphics, code or something completely different. It’s not a magic creativity machine, but when you learn to put yourself in this creative mental state, new and exciting things will happen.

In the “Build Your Portfolio: Ideation Project”, you’ll find a series of practical exercises which together form a complete ideation project so you can get your hands dirty right away. If you want to complete these optional exercises, you will get hands-on experience with the methods you learn and in the process you’ll create a case study for your portfolio which you can show your future employer or freelance customers.

Your instructor is Alan Dix. He’s a creativity expert, professor and co-author of the most popular and impactful textbook in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Alan has worked with creativity for the last 30+ years, and he’ll teach you his favorite techniques as well as show you how to make room for creativity in your everyday work and life.

You earn a verifiable and industry-trusted Course Certificate once you’ve completed the course. You can highlight it on your resume, your LinkedIn profile or your website.

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

Course Certificate example

Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Our clients: IBM, HP, Adobe, GE, Accenture, Allianz, Phillips, Deezer, Capgemin, Mcafee, SAP, Telenor, Cigna, British Parliament, State of New York

Is This Course Right for You?

This is a beginner-level course suitable for anyone who wants to unleash their creativity by mastering the powerful creativity techniques and tools. If you’re already seasoned at ideation, the tools and techniques will imbue your ideation sessions and your everyday creative practice with new energy. This course is particularly valuable for:

  • UX, UI and graphic designers interested in gaining a new creative approach to solving problems and generating solutions that work
  • Project managers who want to enable their team to excel at generating innovative solutions
  • Stakeholders who are keen to get involved in and manage the creative process of developing a new product or service
  • Software engineers interested in playing a part in idea generation and the design process
  • Entrepreneurs looking to develop innovative products that fit the market and users’ lives
  • Anyone who is interested in a creative problem-solving approach that can be applied to all types of problems

Learn and Work with a Global Community of Designers

When you take part in this course, you’ll join a global community and work together to improve your skills and career opportunities. Connect with helpful peers and make friends with like-minded individuals as you push deeper into the exciting and booming industry of creativity and design. You will have the opportunity to share ideas, learn from your fellow course participants and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Course Overview: What You'll Master

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
  • Estimated learning time: 22 hours 56 mins spread over 7 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 24 mins.

Lesson 1: What Is Creativity and How Do You Think Outside of the Box with Divergent Thinking?

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours 8 mins.

Lesson 2: Convergence: How to Uncover Knowledge and Be Creative Through Analytical Thinking

Available anytime after Apr 18, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 6 hours 4 mins.

Lesson 3: How to Nurture Your Own Creativity and Build a Creative Team Environment

Available anytime after Apr 25, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours 30 mins.

Lesson 4: How to Plan and Time-Manage Creative Projects to Guarantee Successful Outcomes

Available anytime after May 02, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 51 mins.

Lesson 5: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

Available anytime after May 09, 2025.

How Others Have Benefited

Gaby Vargas

Gaby Vargas, Chile

“I really loved the way Alan explained the course; he's very polite and kind. I felt really good watching the videos. It didn't feel like taking a class, it was more like having a conversation and getting advice from someone that really wants to help you and that's really good at his job.”

Richie McGirr

Richie McGirr, United States

“As an instructor, Alan Dix is very engaging. I felt like he was talking to me as a friend the entire time. He also obviously knows his stuff. This was a very fun and useful class. Useful for anyone who makes stuff, even for people like me who do a little bit of design but mostly write code.”

Tirzah Strobos

Tirzah Strobos, South Africa

“Alan is so interesting. He is relatable. He tells stories; he doesn't give lectures. He keeps you engaged through the entire video and course because he is so passionate about it, and it resonates with me.”

See other reviews

How It Works

  1. Take online courses by industry experts

    Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.

  2. Get a Course Certificate

    Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.

  3. Advance your career

    Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.

Start Advancing Your Career Now

Join us to take “Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.

Advance my career now
Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services
Closes in
04
hrs
24
mins
40
secs
11% booked
Privacy Settings
By using this site, you accept our Cookie Policy and Terms of Use.

Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services

1.3 - What are the Stages of Creativity?

Show Hide video transcript
  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:32

    A guy called Wallas published a book and in it included talking about stages of creativity. So, let's look at these four stages. So, they talk about *preparation*. That's the things you do like gathering information, getting yourself into the space that understands the problem. *Incubation* – which is a period when you're  not directly thinking about the problem,

  2. 00:00:32 --> 00:00:51

    but it's bubbling around somewhere. *Illumination* – which is that 'Ah! Got it!' And then – and people use different words for this – *verification*, checking whether it really does do the job, or *implementation*, actually using it to make something.

Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services

2.7 - Ideation Method: Embrace Opposites

Show Hide video transcript
  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:31

    I'd like to tell you now about a technique that  I use often – a very simple technique to enhance structures. I've already got some sort of dimensional, categorical way of describing a problem and to make it richer or to explore whether you can make it richer. We often have things which *appear* to be opposites.

  2. 00:00:31 --> 00:01:01

    So, in political life you might have left wing versus right wing. In personalities, you might have an introvert versus extrovert. And whenever I'm faced with a dichotomy that says 'this or this', I ask myself, 'Can it be both?' So, we might have – in a classic user interface kit, we've been using menus as examples – you might have menus versus radio  buttons.

  3. 00:01:01 --> 00:01:32

    And they're completely different things – something is either a menu or it's a radio button. Neither both. But what about, could you have something that's *both* a menu and a radio button? So, could you have something that looks like a menu, perhaps pulls down but has radio buttons inside it? Would that work? Or neither, of course, but neither is (inaud.) – you can think of things like text. But can it be both? So, rather than saying A or B – one or the other – can you actually have something that has elements of both going on?

  4. 00:01:32 --> 00:02:03

    And sometimes the answer is no and your categories are disjoint. But often if you ask about something being both, you learn something or at the very least you learn that these really are distinct. You can do the same for  things that are – so that's true of things which are like menu versus radio button, which are categories, but also things like the left (inaudible) right button ring, which is more of a dimension. Sometimes you (inaud.) to ask if a thing is a bit of each. Can you have something that's *almost*

  5. 00:02:03 --> 00:02:30

    menu-like but also has a little bit of radio button? I'm not quite sure what that would be, but that  might be true of, say, the fiction versus versus non-fiction. So, you might say, 'These are my fiction books. These are my non-fiction books.' You know – what would it mean for something to be mostly fiction with a little bit of non-fiction? So, again, a historical novel  might fit into that category. And what you're doing then, actually,  is you're taking what appears to be  

  6. 00:02:30 --> 00:03:05

    *categorical distinction* – it's either this or this –  and actually turning it into a *dimension*. It could be totally the one thing; it could be totally  other – totally fiction, totally non-fiction, but possibly somewhere in between. So, you can both look at more rich categories, things that are both, but also *turn* what appears to be a categorical distinction into a dimensional one. And dimensions tend to be richer, partial things. They can be more problematic, but they're often richer. However, if you've got dimensions, you can do similar tricks to dimensions.

  7. 00:03:05 --> 00:03:34

    So, let's think of the classic personality trait – introvert, extrovert. And whenever I see a scale that's got something on one end, something on the other, I always want to twist it and say, 'Well, what about if it was bent in half? Can we imagine somebody who is both very introvert *and* very extrovert? Or can we imagine somebody who's very non-extrovert *and* very non-introvert? Do we have to see these as opposites? Can we actually think about combinations?

  8. 00:03:34 --> 00:04:03

    Maybe it's at different times; maybe it's at the same time. What would that mean? And we start to learn about the nature of  personality, perhaps a richer way than if you see things always in terms of polarities. So, again, it's a powerful way. Again, sometimes the answer is you do something like this and you think, 'Actually, this is meaningless. There really, really is a distinction.' But so many times, I've found that what appears to be

  9. 00:04:03 --> 00:04:31

    the sort of middle neutral point in fact can consist of both – shall we say – a more neutral something that has neither characteristics, but also something that embodies both characteristics can be placed in that middle, and they're actually more that they sit out at the top right-hand corner. In one way, so what these opposites  do is they again help you, as with many of the other techniques we've looked at, to feed your gut feelings.

  10. 00:04:31 --> 00:05:00

    So, some of the things we start off – when we start off with concrete examples, we've been taking something that's very solid. You know – I know this is a mug; I know this is a remote control, and dealing with those concrete things, and then using that to abstract, to start to have a vocabulary to talk about our problem domain. What we're doing here is taking that  vocabulary and creating more of these gut feelings that enable us to actually look at it  and think, 'Yes, I can imagine something there.'

Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services

3.9 - Try Different Roles to Solve Your Problems – Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats

Show Hide video transcript
  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:30

    Let's now talk a little bit about roles in creativity, taking on a role. We'll start off by looking at de Bono again and the thinking hats. So, I think the two things if you've heard of de Bono will be lateral thinking and thinking hats. So, de Bono talks about *six hats*. One of the hats, what he calls the *white hat* is the information-seeking hat.

  2. 00:00:30 --> 00:01:02

    I think the white is supposed to be like the blank slate, blank piece of paper you write on. So, you're seeking information – you're finding  out about things that are similar and related, and doing that kind of thing; it's a gathering stage. Then there's the *yellow hat*, which is the positive, bright, looking for the pros in everything, as opposed to the *black hat*, where you look at all the negative things, all the cons, all the reasons why something is bad. So, with those positive and negative, again – with the bad ideas, recall deliberately how do you think about what are the positive things about this idea?

  3. 00:01:02 --> 00:01:33

    What are the bad things about this idea? And then actually, once you've thought of the good things to critique those; so, alternating you between taking this sort of positive, active role of thinking what are good things, and taking the negative role. Then there's this *red hat*, which is about listening to your feelings, trying to get that gut reaction to something, getting that out without necessarily thinking about why you think that, just getting it out there. You can use some of these others to question it. The *green hat*, which is all about bright ideas,

  4. 00:01:33 --> 00:02:04

    thinking of just lots and lots and lots of ideas. And then, finally, and possibly most important the *blue hat* – the role management hat, actually looking back and saying, 'Have I actually thought about all of the (inaud.)? Have I spent time thinking about the positive aspects of this? Have I spent time listening to what I feel about this?' Actually, I'm going to pop back to that feeling one because I've – one of the techniques that I often suggest people use when they do qualitative research is

  5. 00:02:04 --> 00:02:30

    to deliberately do things that incite  those gut feelings. So, what I suggest doing is if they've got some sort of model, some sort of vocabulary, is to look back to the original data to use their model to describe their data  or use their vocabulary to describe their data. Perhaps it's something that somebody said,  something that somebody did, and then say, 'it's just a...' – you know – so, 'it's just a...'

  6. 00:02:30 --> 00:03:02

    and then the words will be vocabulary. And see how much that rankles inside. So, effectively what you can do is create  situations. And this is the role management thing; it's saying, 'Can I create a situation where I can apply the red hat, where I can generate feelings?' So, I think it's a quite useful set of –  they're not the only things you could have. And there are different roles you can have; you might have roles which are perhaps more to do with – should we say – customer-focus or client-focus roles.

  7. 00:03:02 --> 00:03:33

    You know – so, one of you might say, 'I'm going to be thinking about – I'm going to be the problem owner.' And another person might decide to act as the technology provider, another person as perhaps the management role, and then think about each, taking that viewpoint to look at a problem. So, there are different ways you might choose roles. So, why are roles useful – taking a role on at times? Sometimes it's to help you *notice that you've neglected something*.

  8. 00:03:33 --> 00:04:00

    So, for instance, I mentioned the feeling one or it might be that you spent so much time thinking about positive things, you've not actually considered some of the negative features. So, by thinking about the roles, by putting a role hat on, you force yourself to think about things from *different  viewpoints* and to not neglect some aspect. Particularly on that positive and negative hat, if you say, 'I am going to be the devil's advocate for a period,'

  9. 00:04:00 --> 00:04:32

    by stating that, by saying 'I am  putting that hat on, I am taking that role on,' it can avoid a level of rancor in groups. So, if you're doing a group, if you're working together and somebody's being the proponent's idea,  if you start saying negative things about it, everybody gets upset. If you say, 'Not because I think it's a bad idea, but because I'm going to take this negative role,  I'm going to try and think of all the negative aspects about it,' it can make it a little bit easier. I mean, they still might hate you if you do it. So, it's a good idea to rotate the negative hat  around. Everyone will love you while you're taking

  10. 00:04:32 --> 00:05:03

    the positive hat on; they'll hate you when you have the negative hat on, but by *knowing* it's a hat, it can help allow you to be – particularly in this critical role – without causing ill will. It might also help you to *go beyond your norms of behavior*. So, if you tend to be the sort of person who always sees the negative aspect, then actually deliberately taking the positive role, or vice versa, if you're the person who just, particularly if you don't like hurting people's feelings,

  11. 00:05:03 --> 00:05:31

    you might tend to encourage people. Think of all the positive things, think of things that help them, but actually sometimes it's *more* helpful to be critical, and so actually saying,  'Okay, just for a moment, I'm going to take that devil's advocate role, take that negative role and see where that leads me.' And it can help you to escape the patternings that you have. And particularly we mentioned the stepping back, the way that roles, actually thinking

  12. 00:05:31 --> 00:06:02

    'I am taking on a role' helps you think about the role. It makes you think that there are different roles you can take and that they can apply. So... thinking about roles helps you to step back from the problem, step back from you as a solution (inaud.)— whether it's a team or it's you as an individual, you might alternate roles yourself within a project; you might choose to take roles if you're working as a group. But that stepping back is quite an important bit and *seeing that it's a role* and therefore helping you to adopt them.

  13. 00:06:02 --> 00:06:33

    And they really make a difference. Taking on roles helps you think in *different* ways. So, this is seen particularly in  work on gender studies and also work on issues to do with racial bias in things like job markets and examinations and things like that. And this is partly about the bias – we  talked about bias earlier – but also about the way in which you tell stories to yourself. So, I come from a working-class background.

  14. 00:06:33 --> 00:07:04

    So, one of the stories I might tell myself if I'm not careful is – you know – 'Working-class boys don't do this' – as a child going to university or whatever it was. And I went to Cambridge University. You know – 'Working-class boys don't go to Cambridge University. Posh kids go there, not working-class boys.' We tell ourselves stories. What you find is when you do experiments and you get people to think just before an examination or a test about  different kinds of roles

  15. 00:07:04 --> 00:07:32

    – now, that might be gender-reversal roles, it might be trying to think – of boys to think about more female things and vice versa. It might be about social background, a variety of things. You find it actually makes a substantial difference in the test scores. So, by just having people *think about different roles*, they suddenly *behave differently* because it's so easy to get trapped in the expectations we have of ourselves

  16. 00:07:32 --> 00:08:03

    built up individually over time;  sometimes it's about our social situation. This also works for creativity. So, if you ask people to think about things that, shall we say, are creative things (inaud.), and it might be you spend time thinking about Einstein or DeRidder or Picasso, as opposed to, say, thinking about  a foot soldier who's ordered what to do all the time or somebody who's sleeping – you know. So, if you think about creative things and then go into a creative situation,

  17. 00:08:03 --> 00:08:30

    that can actually help you be more creative. Throughout these videos, I constantly emphasize that we're all individual and different, and one of the most powerful things you could do  is understand the way you are and then use it. But part of that is also – it's a bit like seeing outside the box – by understanding that, sometimes you can create these things and roles, and building these roles

  18. 00:08:30 --> 00:08:46

    for yourself is one of the mechanisms that allows you to for a period, for a purpose to actually reinvent yourself so that when you're addressing a particular problem sometimes you can literally address it as a different person.

New to UX Design? We're Giving You a Free eBook!

The Basics of User Experience Design

Download our free ebook “The Basics of User Experience Design” to learn about core concepts of UX design.

In 9 chapters, we'll cover: conducting user interviews, design thinking, interaction design, mobile UX design, usability, UX research, and many more!

A valid email address is required.
315,698 designers enjoy our newsletter—sure you don't want to receive it?

Course FAQ

loading content…