How Might We Encourage Children to Read More?

Written By Ruth Lemma

Everything begins with an idea, and the goal of this project was to practice prototyping, experimenting, and iterating to move ideas forward. This was the second IDEO U course I completed, and it taught me to frame ideas as experiments, expanding my capacity for creativity, innovation, and structured exploration.

Phase 1: Ideate

Ideation is all about exploring possibilities. The focus for this phase was generating an abundance of ideas, pushing past the obvious, and embracing playful thinking. One of my biggest learnings was the value of quantity over quality early in the process because it allows room for the unexpected, the bold, and even the ridiculous.

Mindset: Be playful.

Step 1: Planning

To tackle the prompt “How might we encourage children to read more?” I designed a 30 minute ideation session and invited my partner to join via Zoom. I chose the mash up ideation method, which involves gathering elements or techniques from unrelated industries and cross pollinating them to spark fresh thinking.


Method: Mashup
Tools: Zoom and Miro


This approach helped us stretch our creative muscles and explore unconventional ways to inspire young readers.

Step 2: Ideate

We began with 15 minutes of individual brainstorming in Miro, listing features, products, and methods from industries we found interesting. We then used those components to cross pollinate ideas by combining unexpected elements and pushing beyond familiar solutions.

Project challenge: How might we encourage children to read more?

Method: Mashup

Tools used: Zoom and Miro

Step 3: Converge

By the end of the session, we generated a total of 20 ideas, more than we planned for. After sharing our concepts with each other, we voted on the strongest directions to move forward with. Three ideas stood out.

Key Ideas

  • Create a book with an integrated digital screen that visually animates content as the child reads aloud

  • Create book themed library escape rooms where kids solve puzzles inspired by stories they have read

  • Design reading based games where kids must read out loud to advance levels

Personal Reflection

Leading the ideation session was more challenging than I expected. I felt flustered at the beginning while trying to keep the session on track, but with patience, structure, and openness, it evolved into a productive and energizing experience.

Insight:

Preparation is essential for running ideation sessions because clear structure creates more room for creativity.

Ruth Lemma
Next

Phase 2: Prototype