Ask HN: How do you visualise new ideas and concepts?

4 points by rudasn 15y ago ↗ HN

By visualise I mostly mean the first thing that comes to your mind. For example, considering the term "search" you may visualise a text box or a relational database or a business plan or some software specifications.

I know there are many programmers/engineers in this community but also many designers and business-oriented people. I think this would make a nice discussion and help us all understand a bit more about how others see things.

As for me, I tend to visualise interfaces and interactions. For "search", I will think of a text box first and then try to think something better (or at least different) than a text box.

2 comments

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jpwagner 15y ago ↗

I believe it helps to think more abstractly.

Search is literally finding things. Think of a dictionary, a stack of papers, a filing cabinet, a helicopter with a spotlight, a bloodhound, triangulation, and on down the scale of abstraction.

Get to the core of what the user is trying to accomplish. Come up with some crazy ideas as well as incremental improvements, then talk to people about them and see what resonates.

bartonfink 15y ago ↗

Honestly, the first thing that came to mind when you said "search" was "search space" - an abstract Cartesian landscape like something out of Tron. I'm probably abnormal...