Introducing Triggers: the story beyond the cards

How a set of cards can help creatives with brainstorming

The concept

In June last year, I decided to build a simple website explaining a project I had slowly been developing on the side. It’s called Triggers, and it’s a set of physical cards that helps people come up with creative ideas.

Triggers prototype

I came across the need of Triggers long ago during some of my workshops; sometimes you try a great group exercise for ideation, but the whole team thinks the same, or they just can’t get any ideas. The method might be great, but the inspiration is not there.

Triggers cards contains “what if” questions that make you think in different directions, accelerating the process of generating ideas.

Some examples of Triggers cards used for the prototype

I have designed those questions as generic as possible, so they fit most kind of creative problems.

How Triggers works
I see Triggers questions like doors or paths. Every time you take one card, you are opening a door and taking a sneak peek of what’s inside. These doors make you curious, awake and creative.

I have seen how the cards work in very diverse teams, and the results are very promising. These are some of the conclusions I got:

1) It’s very horizontal. Everyone can use it, it’s simple and direct, and makes all members of the team a great asset to ideate.
2)It’s very flexible. You can use the cards in many different ways and techniques. There is not just one way.
3) It diversifies thoughts. With the cards, groups and individuals tend to think out of the box and get unexpected results.
4) It works! You can see how people immediately start spitting out ideas when they use them.

The vision
For the launch, I’m focusing Triggers on creativity, design thinking, service design and advertising projects, but my long-term vision is much richer and broader.

My ultimate vision is t0 develop Triggers to be a tool for opening and diversifying thoughts, in whatever topic that might be. I’m talking about science, literature and even politics. I can perfectly see a Triggers stack focused on designing alternative society systems.

I’m excited about the potential of the project and to have the opportunity of researching on different fields and collaborating with other people.

Let’s see how far we can take Triggers.