What is a Brainstorm Session?Brainstorming is a process of spontaneous thinking

used by an individual or by a group of people to generate a number of ideas without criticism or judgment about the ideas.

Brainstorming is an important part in each of the stages of all problem-solving methods.

Brainstorming is part of the web development process, and can be used throughout the design phase.

Common topics or questions within a web design team, a web design project, or working with a client on their website can be answered using brainstorming.

What to do with the Ideas, Comments, and Answers?GroupLabelPrioritize the ideas within a groupPrioritize the groupsSelect your top ideasKeep the othersRevisit

Group and LabelGroup all of the comments, answers, or ideas

in similar groupsPost-It notesIndex cardsDifferent sheets of paper

Label the groups of commentsText labelsColored labels

PrioritizePrioritize the individual ideas in a group

Pick as a group which ideas are best It’s ok to have a discussion or to support an idea. This is the time to speak out either for an idea or comment. If you are working with a client, you will want their ideas

and input as well. Voting on this works out greatPick the top two ideas, if there is a tie for an idea,

pick both of them.Prioritize the groups

Pick as a group which ideas are bestVoting on this works out great

SelectSelect the top five or six ideas or comments

that work best with the brainstorm topic.There may be more that you want to add later, so

keep the other ideas at hand.You and your group will be concentrating on

producing, solving, or implementing the top five or six ideas.

The ideas generated from both the brainstorm session and the organization session will influence the direction of your web site design process.

RevisitRevisit the ideas once you have completed

the top five identified ideas.Reorganize the rest of the ideas as priorities

may have changed.

Where to go from here?You may need to have other brainstorm

sessions as a result of this session. That is OK, as this is a tool that you should use often during a web site development process, or in the design, development, or testing stage of a web site development. Use the Brainstorm tool to help you understand a problem, become more creative, or tackle a project. The results will always provide a potential solution or outcome.