Leverage Analogous Inspiration in minutes with prompts and uxGPT Analogous Inspiration

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A lot of designers work in domains where good design is not as prevalent as you would think, so we have to look elsewhere for inspiration. Analogous inspiration is one of the research methods I love best.

It’s a very divergent activity that allows teams to explore and a perfect for ChatGPT?—?brainstorming new ideas quickly while assessing the quality of those ideas.

By examining how different domains solve similar problems, one can discover unique approaches and strategies that can be adapted to their own context. This cross-pollination of ideas encourages out-of-the-box thinking and helps to break away from conventional solutions that might be limiting progress.

Analogous inspiration often brings fresh perspectives and insights, which can lead to breakthroughs and improvements that would not have been possible within the confines of one’s own field.

ChatGPT is good at giving you a list to start with. Since the application has indexed content from thousands of domains, it can draw similar analogies that are useful for this exercise.

Let’s get started.

Start with the domain

I like starting as wide as possible on analogous inspiration myself because I want to keep a very open mind. This fosters a broader perspective when you draw inspiration from diverse fields, leading to more creative and unique solutions. It also helps in identifying patterns that might not be apparent within the narrow scope of your specific domain.

It also reduces the risk of producing derivative work, ensuring that your solutions are fresh and original. By exploring a wide array of inspirations, you build a rich repository of ideas that can be synthesized and adapted to create groundbreaking innovations.

Now we can start with a big prompt.

Prompt

List 20 applications that are in domains adjacent to customer relationship management in a table.

Add personas

Now let’s add some context. Adding context, like personas and tasks, to analogous inspiration is essential because it grounds abstract ideas in practical, user-centered realities. Personas represent your target audience, illustrating their goals, needs, and behaviors.

Integrating these personas ensures that the ideas you derive are applicable to the people you’re designing for. You can translate contextual inspirations into actionable insights tailored to your audience.

Tasks integrated into the ask also provide a concrete framework for how users interact with your product. You can see how innovative concepts from different fields can enhance or streamline user experiences. This method bridges the gap between inspiration and implementation, making sure that creative ideas are not just interesting but also functional and effective in real-world scenarios.

This transforms inspiration into a strategic tool, driving solutions that are both imaginative and focused on a similar task at hand.

Prompt

List 20 applications that are in domains adjacent to customer relationship management with personas similar to sales managers or business development representatives and their tasks in a table.

Add feature

When I do analogous inspiration, I like adding context, like the feature at hand, because it ensures that the inspiration is directly relevant and actionable. This approach maximizes efficiency of your inspiration process, allowing you to focus on ideas that can be considered for your design.

Also, having this context included helps in communicating your ideas and the related mental models more effectively to stakeholders. It illustrates how specific inspirations contribute to solving design challenges you are addressing. I wouldn’t go much further down in context to keep an open mind, so I usually stop here in this divergent task.

Let’s go down to the feature level to the prompt.

Prompt

List 20 applications that are in domains adjacent to customer relationship management and managing accounts with personas similar to sales managers or business development representatives and their tasks in a table.

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