"Fail Early to Succeed Sooner" - 'From Ideas to Action' Certificate

9/19/2026

"Fail early to succeed sooner" is my favorite quote from the IDEO course 'Ideas to Action'!

As someone with a million ideas sitting in my mind (or on my notes app), I practiced a framework to move quickly from a problem/idea to a real prototype that can get feedback and be iterated upon.

I also learned to have fun with the creative ideation process, to propose "silly" ideas, and to seek feedback as much as possible!

The question I tackled during my course was:

How Might We create a lecture experience that helps college students engage more deeply and get greater value from their time in class? (Especially in the age of AI)

The process started with gathering information. I surveyed and interviewed fellow students from various universities about their preferences and summarized my findings. I then began the ideation process, generating many different ideas and solutions before condensing to a few ideas that felt viable and effective. Next was rapid prototyping, where I quickly made some low fidelity prototypes that could be used to get feedback as soon as possible. From there, I set the stage for further ideation and iteration. I also viewed my solution from the lenses of Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility to point my future needs and direction.

It was a great experience and gave me useful infrastructure for my creative process!

Fig. 1: Initial Ideation Process, using a brainstorm methodology based rooted in my survey data and interview reflections.

Fig. 2: Initial customer experience prototype.

Fig. 3: User Interface prototype for what the students would see during lecture sessions.

Fig. 4: Title slide of the final pitch deck for the IDEO U course, showcasing the creative process timeline as well.