In the irritant word technique, terms or concepts are connected with each other that, at first glance, have nothing to do with each other. Stimulus words are used, which are selected at random. This very simple creative technique is very conducive to creative thinking, even when there is no specific problem or target. You learn to see things from a completely new perspective.
The focus is particularly on finding ideas in advertising and the media landscape as well as finding product names and new and further developments of products. Searching and finding new fields of application and customer groups for a product are also favored topics for the application of this technology.
The goal of the stimulus word method is to trigger the idea generation process through a planned evocation of random words.
The purpose is to identify general and transferable principles, elements, or design options to solve a specific problem. Based on a detailed problem description, a set of stimulus words is randomly selected.
On the basis of a careful analysis of the stimulus words, it is then examined which ideas or solution approaches can be derived for the problem under investigation. For technical or design problems, the stimulus words should be as representational as possible; for strategic and similar non-technical problems, events from social life as well as films and novels are suitable.
