Hot Air Balloon

The Hot Air Balloon is a structured ideation and preliminary data collection method that uses simple metaphor to organise and then deconstruct a problem, scenario or issue a team might be facing.

Thales Macedo from Hyper Island¹ is credited with developing this method and we encourage you to build on the steps described below and in the activity as the beauty of this kind of method is in its flexibility and adaptability. Much like the PACT framework and SCAMPER method, Hot Air Balloon provides a series of organising principles that can be used to break down a problem, providing new insights into the problem and often uncovering aspects that might be easily overlooked when addressing the ‘big picture’ of them problem at hand.

While this method follows a relatively common approach to problem-solving – structuring and organising a problem into a series of categories or themes, its innovation lies in its use of metaphor as a way to enable people of varying technical ability, education level, lay persons and designers to contribute relatively equally. The use of metaphor encourages creative thinking regardless of skill and experience level, while the collaborative nature of the method is well suited to both interaction designers and team-based projects from any domain.

If you’re using Hot Air Balloon for the first time, we encourage you to include each of the following seven steps – do feel free to adapt, remix and expand on these steps on an as-needs basis, as a project may have its own unique requirements. Finally, while the method is not context-specific to interaction design, we have included some prompts below to help contextualise each step to interaction design, which are based on how we’ve used the method in our own projects – with great success too!

The Hot Air Balloon steps are:

• Wind: External forces we have no control over such as time, budget, material and equipment constraints – this also might include the experience and technical proficiency of your intended users;
• Sandbags: Internal challenges you and your team are facing, such as technical ability, time management and communication;
• Hot Air: Your team and project strengths – skills, abilities, personal qualities, innovation in the project, a desire to evoke change;
• Passengers: These are the internal stakeholders that have influence on the project –the immediate project team.
• Observers: The target demographic/s for the project, as well as external funding bodies, community groups and any organisations connected to the project beyond the immediate team.
• Paradise Island: This is the big picture goal – envision the intended, lasting impact your project might have in 5-10 years – this is your paradise! How do you imagine the future will be changed or influenced by your project?
• Flight Path: Your flight path is determined by the decisions made that influence the direction of your project. What are the actionable steps that can be taken today to steer your balloon towards paradise island?

Activity

Activity steps

1. Write down each of the 7 headings across a whiteboard or large sheet of paper.
2. The facilitator should guide the team members through each heading, step-by-step and reiterate what the headings mean when moving on to the next. Spend about 5-7 minutes on each step.
3. Team members should share their thoughts by writing under the heading or adding a post-it note below.
4. When a team member contributes, they should briefly describe their contribution. It’s up to the facilitator to keep discussion brief and constructive.
5. The facilitator should encourage input from everyone in the team – the aim here is to create shared ownership of the project scope and vision.
6. The final step – the Flight Path – is where the team develops an action plan to put into practice. Each team member should agree on this action plan, which can be drawn up as a separate document and distributed across the team.

References

1. Macedo, Thales. n.d. ‘Hot Air Balloon’. Hyper Island Toolbox. Accessed 26 February 2020. https://toolbox.hyperisland.com/hot-air-balloon.