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The Orange View

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The Orange View is a technique developed by Benno van Aerssen that can be used especially in idea generation, but also in challenge analysis. The Orange View primarily helps you focus your perception when you once again can’t see the forest for the trees.

Get your challenge out of the blind spot of inattentional blindness by using The Orange View to change your perspective and simply color the problem orange.

You know the phenomenon: you have just bought a small red sports car. All senses are now focused on this subject and your subconscious mind reports to you everything about the subject that your eyes and ears tell it. Whenever you drive through the streets, you suddenly see only red sports cars everywhere, your subconscious immediately reports it to you. You no longer even notice the billboards with the new black sports cars that you drive past every day. The black sports cars are in the blind spot of inattention blindness. Remember: You will only ever find what you are consciously looking for. You are blind to everything else.

The Orange View is particularly suitable for idea generation for product and process innovations. Often I let myself drift during my free time and color one or the other just orange. This has often resulted in very good ideas or flashes of inspiration.

“The idea for The Orange View actually came to me on the toilet – yes, the classic,” says Benno van Aerssen. In this very dreary quiet little restroom, an orange roll of toilet paper was emblazoned in the toilet roll holder of a highway rest stop. “After grappling for a while with the question, “Why do you think the operator chose orange, and what is that doing to me right now?” the idea for The Orange View popped into my head.”

When you color orange a problem that needs to be analyzed or brainstormed about, your perception instantly changes. It’s all about the famous eye for the essentials. Alternatively, I have also colored the environment of a problem orange. Since that time, the can of orange paint has been one of the most important utensils in my brainstorming workshops. At some point, it was also no longer just about objects, but also about processes. In the workshops, we colored in orange or marked the things involved in the process (folders, filing boxes or even the paths to be covered). It actually sounds too simple – but it really is that simple; do it orange and you’ll see what that gets going.

Why orange? Of course, this question has been asked more often. It was ultimately a coincidence, because the clog story told actually happened that way. Benno van Aerssen has of course also dealt with this color in the course of time. It has also been shown in his non-scientific observation and work that although in principle any other color can work, but with orange it is always somehow easier, faster, better and more efficient.

If you read through the relevant literature and websites on color theory, you will find that orange is traded as an exotic color for which there are no natural materials. Orange is also not an all-around feel-good color like blue or green. Orange can have very different properties in it, but in my opinion the positive ones clearly predominate.

Positive: energy, joy, vivacity, fun, affirmation of life, active, exuberance, joie de vivre, activity, movement, unconventional, extrovert

Negative: intrusive, frivolous or even cheap

Orange is a color with a signal effect. It is an active color, it warms, gives courage and joy. Orange strengthens self-esteem and helps especially with new beginnings. In this respect, I think it was no coincidence that orange became the color for the Orange View.

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