Extra: Steal and stitch

This 2 hour exercise requires you to use Google effectively (I have a couple of tips on better searches in my User Research workshop, see How to conduct desk research and Why spy on your competitors).

The aim is to find concepts and ideas from unconnected fields and see how they could be used to alleviate your user's problem.

The usual difficulty with this exercise is knowing where to start but once you've begun you might find it hard to stop yourself from looking further and further afield.

If you're wondering where to begin I often start by typing problem + "around the world" into Google i.e. "female homelessness around the world". I then flick through the pages of results until something jumps out at me and then I start there and go deeper.

Another way to begin is to type problem + "innovation" into Google i.e. "female homelessness innovation" and flick through the results to find a good starting point.