Comments on: MBTI, a solid framework to sketch ideas

By: Jamie Neely

Jamie Neely — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:05:55 +0000

This is really interesting. It makes perfect sense to lean on the ideas of MBTI when considering a person’s preference for one idea over another. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing the sketching paper too, Henk.

By: Sean Scott

Sean Scott — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:14:44 +0000

If you like MTBI, I would definitely recommend “Waiting for your Cat to Bark” by the Eisenberg brothers. Really goes into a lot of details. We based our personas on a similar methodology.

By: Henk Wijnholds

Henk Wijnholds — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:47:54 +0000

@mark Thanks for this great question.

For us this is only one way to get going when trying to come up with lots of ideas. When you have the opportunity to identify personas then that’s even better (in our case, the 4 MBTI personalities sometimes form a base for personas). These personality traits help us think outside the box (or even better, inside someone else’s).

But when choosing the right ideas, sculpting ideas and sculpting the concept a lot of other factors become more important than the 4 personality traits. User research; feasibility; business requirements; other design principles and gut feelings then overrule the MBTI framework. For example: It may very well be that in the accountancy sector people act preferably methodical when performing certain tasks.

By: Mark Baldino

Mark Baldino — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:06:57 +0000

This is a very interesting idea especially, as you noted, when starting fresh with a new concept. At our firm we generally try and identify personas first before diving into concepts but sometimes that isn’t possible or perhaps your approach could be used in conjunction with personas.

I am curious your next step in the process. Do you merge these ideas into a single concept blending the best from each? Or perhaps start over and just use them as a reference point for further design?

Mark