Help
Lens Card
Each lens card (pictured above) shows the name of the lens in the lens card's header.
Close button
The icon on the right side of the header is a close button. Clicking the close button for a lens hides that lens.
Why would you want to hide a lens?
While problem-solving, you will always have the freedom to think any way you want about the problem you're trying to solve. Most of the time, that freedom is helpful, but sometimes you may find yourself drifting around, maybe thinking in circles.
One reason we created the 25 lenses is to offer you some structure to support your problem-solving activities. Knowing that there are 25 discrete lenses gives you the ability to move from one to the next, focusing on one lens at a time.
Once you've considered a lens, you may want it to "go away", not distract you while you focus on the next lens.
Once you've hidden a lens, a button will appear near the top of the screen.
You can click this button to show the lenses you've hidden.
While testing this app, we found that some people, mostly those using the app on mobile devices, would hide a lens, not notice the "Show Hidden" button, and not know how to get their lenses back.
For this reason, the first two times you hide a lens, the app will display a dialog telling you about the "Show Hidden" button. We found that if we only showed this dialog once, people closed it before they read it and therefore missed the message.
Find Lens
The Find Lens command (pictured above) allows you to choose a lens from a drop-down menu to focus exclusively on that lens.
After you choose a lens from the drop down, the Find Lens area looks like this.
The drop down above shows the name of the selected lens, which in this case is ACCESS.
Left and Right Arrows
The left arrow button allows you to move to the previous lens, in alphabetical order. The right arrow button allows you to move to the next lens. If you move past the beginning or end of the list, the command circles back. So if you select VARIATIONS and click right arrow, you move to ACCESS.
One of our most important design goals for this software is to help you focus on each step of the problem-solving process.
When you use the Find Lens command, the software displays all info about that lens and removes the other lenses from the page. This action can help you focus on one lens at a time, so you're confident that you're moving forward in the process.
Clear Selection
Once you've selected a lens using the Find Lens command, the app shows that lens and hides all the others. To restore the selection of lenses, you can click the Clear button on the right side of the Find Lens area.
There is one more way to clear the Find Lens area. We realize it might be confusing, but we believe it's helpful. If you've used Find Lens to find a lens, you can click the Close button (small "x") on the right side of the lens card header to clear the Find Lens area. This is different from the way the Close button works when you haven't found a lens.
Help
Find Lens
The Find Lens command (pictured above) allows you to choose a lens from a drop-down menu to focus exclusively on that lens.
After you choose a lens from the drop down, the Find Lens area looks like this.
The drop down shows the name of the selected lens, which in this case is ACCESS.
Left and Right Arrows
The left arrow button allows you to move to the previous lens, in alphabetical order. The right arrow button allows you to move to the next lens. If you move past the beginning or end of the list, the command circles back. So if you select VARIATIONS and click right arrow, you move to ACCESS.
One of our most important design goals for this software is to help you focus on each step of the problem-solving process. When you use the Find Lens command, the software displays all info about that lens and removes the other lenses from the page. This action can help you focus on one lens at a time, so you know that you're moving forward in the process.
Clear Selection
Once you've selected a lens using the Find Lens command, the app shows that lens and hides all the others. To restore the selection of lenses, you can click the Clear button on the right side of the area.
There is one more way to clear the Find Lens area. We realize it might be confusing, but we believe it's helpful. If you've used Find Lens to find a lens, you can click the Close button (small "x") on the right side of the lens card header to clear the Find Lens area. This is different from the way the Close button works when you haven't found a lens.
Show Lenses - Alpha or By Group
The two buttons pictured above allow you to change how the lens cards are displayed on the page.
If you select "Alphabetically", as the picture above shows, the lens cards are displayed in alphabetical order.
If you select "By Group", the lens cards are displayed in five groups: Reduce Abstraction, Increase Abstraction, Change Perspective, Switch Elements and Zero In.
Why Use Groups?
As you try to solve a problem, you may notice that you're running into certain types of difficulties.
For example, if you find yourselve thinking of too many possible solutions, but none of them seem to provide the value you need, you may be asking questions that are too broad. In these cases, the lenses in the Reduce Abstraction group may help you zero in on better solutions.
If instead of too many possible solutions, you find yourself drawing a blank, you may be looking at your problem with too narrow a viewpoint, asking overly-specific questions. At times like these, the lenses in the Increase Abstraction group may help you discover solutions you had not considered.
Each lens card (pictured above) shows the name of the lens in the lens card's header.
Bookmarks
The second to last icon in the header is a bookmark icon. If you're using this app on a small screen, your lens cards may not contain bookmark icons. If you want to use the bookmark icons but don't see them, you could try unlocking and rotating your mobile phone, or trying this application on a desktop web browser.
We hide some features when you use this app on smaller screens, to reduce visual clutter and make items easier to click.
The bookmark in the image above is empty, not selected. If you click an empty bookmark, it becomes selected (filled in with black). You can click the bookmark again to deselect it.
Once you've selected one or more bookmarks, a set of buttons will appear near the top of the screen.
Clicking "All" causes the app to show all 25 lenses. Clicking "Bookmarked" causes the app to show only the lenses you've bookmarked.
You can use these features to create a subset of the 25 lenses, so you can focus on those without being distracted by the others.
Close button
The rightmost icon in the lens card header is a close button. Clicking the close button for a lens hides that lens.
Why would you want to hide a lens?
While problem-solving, you will always have the freedom to think any way you want about the problem you're trying to solve. Most of the time, that freedom is helpful, but sometimes you may find yourself drifting around, maybe thinking in circles.
One reason we created the 25 lenses is to offer you some structure to support your problem-solving activities. Knowing that there are 25 discrete lenses gives you the ability to move from one to the next, focusing on one lens at a time.
Once you've considered a lens, you may want it to "go away", not distract you while you focus on the next lens. You might combine the bookmark features (described above) with the hide lens feature (close box), to iterate through a subset of lenses you've created.
Once you've hidden a lens, a button will appear near the top of the screen.
You can click this button to show the lenses you've hidden.
While testing this app, we found that some people, mostly those using the app on mobile devices, would hide a lens, not notice the "Show Hidden" button, and not know how to get their lenses back. For this reason, the first three times you hide a lens in a day, the app will display a dialog telling you about the "Show Hidden" buttons. We found that if we only showed this dialog once, people closed it before they read it and therefore missed the message.