If you tell someone about a great idea, and they say “That’s a great idea,” it’s not a pattern.

If you tell someone a great idea, and they say “Yes, we do something like that too,” that’s a pattern.

 Exactly! That’s why I speak about Five Sketches™ at conferences and professional development sessions. And that’s why I post and write about everything I come across that’s similar to Five Sketches™.

Design Studio was the first undeniable indication that we’ve solved a problem that others in software development and web development are experiencing. That’s because the Design Studio method is very similar to Five Sketches™. Two completely separate teams, in different countries, came up with nearly the same solution to their respective design-process challenges. Design Studio was developed at Jewelry TV by Jeff White and Jim Ungar.

Here are some more methods and techniques that are similar to parts of Five Sketches­™.

• Low-fidelity generative design. There’s a huge benefit to exploring and evaluating a range of interaction concepts while involving both business and technology partners. This is, in effect, the divergence stage of generative design advocated by Bill Buxton, and done with low-fidelity. Adaptive Path does this with sketchboarding. Five Sketches™ does this by using mixed teams to separately sketch five ideas per participant, and then iterating from there.
• Parallel design. This is supported research and advocated in the book of guidelines from Usability.gov. To ensure parallel design, Desiree Sy at Autodesk uses interns to prototype 10 or more design solutions to a design problem.
• There’s much more that’s already been posted on this site. Use the Search box on this site to look for posts about generative design, design studio, creative hacks, Leah Buley, Bill Buxton, Scott Berkun, Jeff White, and Jim Ungar.