Designing Idea Management Tools: three challenges

Designers have a broad range of digital and analoge idea management tools at their disposal. We know that designers have individual preferences for different tools, but we know very little about why this is, and which practices designers accomplish using different tools. This paper presents the results of an interview study with 16 professional designers, where we investigate the tools, designers use to manage their early stage creative ideas. The study reveals three perceived challenges for designers working with existing idea management tools. These challenges are: 1: Idea management tools are rigid in capture medium, 2: Idea management tools offer inflexible interfaces and representations, and 3: Idea management tools focus mainly on ideas, not ideation. We interpret the findings into operational examples of how builders of novel tools might embrace these challenges in the development of nextgeneration idea management tools.