OUGD502 - Yahoo

In an exercise that encouraged idea generation, a small group of creatives and I brainstormed ways of effectively avoiding creative block. This exercise is a good technique for expanding your own creative idea generation. First we brainstormed what we would do when we hit the creative block.

We determined that when reaching a creative block we would do things that would rest and stimulate our minds. Activities we would take part in include taking a break by watching films, relevant videos on youtube or taking a walk. It is good to test already existing products to give you ideas for your design. Undertaking more research in a product you're designing for or taking part in primary and secondary research. Other smaller activities such as having a tea or a coffee or going to the pub can be the creative break that your mind needs to recover its energy.

Once we had taken part in this task, we were given a brief to undertake. This brief was to "Make Yahoo the most popular homepage". In this task we had to create as many unique ideas as we could. To begin with we approached the task by looking at Yahoo as a search engine and how we could make this function better.

We spoke about both how the website could be improved to make it a popular homepage, as well as ways of how it can be advertised. The target audience was 13-18 year olds, so we considered what platforms this age range would be exposed to and how we could connect to them at their level. In this day and age the use of a search engine is rather pointless, and even if you were to use one, Google is the go to option.  With todays technology information that the user wants to see is already visible on the interface and suggested searches make it easier to find what you're looking for quicker.

After establishing this we thought about ways of connecting to the target audience by using current trends to create a campaign. We considered gorilla ads and current trends seen on Facebook or Twitter such as bottle flipping, memes or a political angle which is still a widely discussed topic which brought about the idea of "Make Yahoo Great Again".

Once these ideas were brainstormed we produced two main ideas that would be pitched.

The first, a bookmarks page. It was established that a search engine isn't used that often anymore and that people have their commonly used pages kept open. A bookmarks page as a homepage would allow the user to quickly get to their favourite pages as well as organise them in their own way. The second idea was a dashboard where the user can link their social media and other tools such as weather or news.

To create a variety of unique ideas was a difficult challenge, however if the brief is read repeatedly and every time approached at a different angle will help kickstart idea generation.