How A Reflection Map Accelerates Concept Improvements

Design projects can begin to feel overwhelming at times, especially during the prototyping phase when new ideas can arise as quickly as older ideas are proven to be ineffective. When a design project gets overwhelming, it is often either due to the sheer amount of ideas, thoughts, to-dos, and insights floating in your head, or due to your team being not quite as aligned as you would wish.

One design method that can help solve both of these issues is a simple reflection map. In this method, you draw out a cross plot and label each of the four boxes as “likes”, “changes”, “questions”, and “ideas”. Adding some symbols toward the middle can help as well. This can be done digitally with any kind of shareable graphic tool, or just on a good old sheet of paper, or a whiteboard. Here is an example:

Though it’s fairly self-explanatory (as any good design tool is), the goal here is to brain dump all the things that have been floating around your group’s heads about the project, and then to go over it together to better align on what you’re thinking. This tool is a great conversation started, and can produce all kinds of insightful thoughts.

Therein lies the biggest advantage you can get out of this method: it is a simple way to sort through thoughts and gain alignment. Another advantage is that it can be used at…