Getting ideas: biomimicry and user-centred design
Great ideas rarely appear from nowhere. Designers use deliberate strategies — copying nature and studying real users — to spark them.
Part of your national curriculum
- Design: Use a variety of approaches to generate creative ideas, including biomimicry and user-centred design
Lesson overview
What you'll learn in this lesson
Use a variety of approaches to generate creative ideas, including biomimicry and user-centred design
Key learning points
- • Biomimicry
- • User-centred design
- • Other idea-generation tools
This lesson at a glance
- 25 minutes
- 14 parts to scroll through
- 3 quick checks
- Marked quiz at the end
- Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses
Words to know
Scroll down — the lesson carries on below
Watch & discover
Part 1 of 14
Watch first
Getting ideas: biomimicry and user-centred design
An English teaching video on this topic from KS3-5 Design & Technology. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.
In a nutshell
Use a variety of approaches to generate creative ideas, including biomimicry and user-centred design
Learning cycle
Part 2 of 14
Learning cycle 1 of 2
Part 1 · Biomimicry
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 3 of 14
Learn
Biomimicry
Biomimicry means borrowing solutions that evolution has already tested. Velcro copied the hooks on burdock seeds; bullet trains copied a kingfisher's beak to cut noise. Looking at how plants and animals solve a problem — gripping, cooling, moving — can unlock ideas that pure imagination misses.
Explore the idea
Part 4 of 14
Learn
User-centred design
This approach starts with the person, not the product. Designers observe or interview real users, note their frustrations, and sketch ideas that solve those specific problems, rather than assuming what people want. A kettle designed for someone with arthritis looks different from a standard one.
Quick check
Part 5 of 14
Quick check
What is biomimicry?
Reset break
Part 6 of 14
Pause
That's sitting 1 of 2 done
Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.
Quick check
Part 7 of 14
Quick check
User-centred design begins by focusing on…
Learning cycle
Part 8 of 14
Learning cycle 2 of 2
Part 2 · Other idea-generation tools
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 9 of 14
Learn
Other idea-generation tools
Mind maps, mood boards and 'what if' questions widen the pool of ideas before narrowing down. Combining approaches — for example a user-centred brief solved with a biomimetic mechanism — often produces the most inventive designs.
Quick check
Part 10 of 14
Quick check
Velcro was inspired by…
Challenge round
Part 11 of 14
Game · Sort it
Which of these are true?
Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.
True
Not true
Challenge round
Part 12 of 14
Game · Fill the gaps
Finish the sentences
Choose the word that belongs in each gap.
____ means borrowing solutions that evolution has already tested.
Combining ____ — for example a user-centred brief solved with a biomimetic mechanism — often produces the most inventive designs.
Mastery quiz
Part 13 of 14
Marked quiz
End of lesson quiz: Getting ideas: biomimicry and user-centred design
3 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.
1. What is biomimicry?
2. User-centred design begins by focusing on…
3. Velcro was inspired by…
Lesson round-up
Part 14 of 14
Lesson round-up
Ready when you are
Quiz score
Not sat
Games
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Points this lesson
0
Best run
0 in a row
Luna: 0 out of 3 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?
Ask LunaDo the work
Your written work for this lesson
This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.
Why the first prototype broke
A team designed a phone stand from 3 mm plywood. The brief said it must hold a 200 g phone at 60° and survive being knocked. The first prototype looked right but snapped at the joint after two knocks.
The team tested again and found the grain of the plywood ran across the narrowest part of the joint, so the wood split along it. They widened the joint from 8 mm to 20 mm, turned the piece so the grain ran along the load, and added a small fillet at the corner to spread the force.
The second prototype survived twenty knocks. It used 15% more material and took four minutes longer to cut — a trade-off the team recorded in their evaluation.
Written for Good Learning Co.
Reading questions
- Name the fault in the first prototype and explain why it happened.
- List the three changes the team made and what each one does.
- Write an evaluation of the second prototype against the brief, including the trade-off.
Design sheet
DiagramSketch two ideas with measurements and notes, then photograph the sheet.
2 labelled sketches
Evaluation
WritingWrite how well your idea meets the brief and what you would change next time.
6–8 sentences
Saved as you type.
Part 1 of 14 · Watch & discover
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Use a variety of approaches to generate creative ideas, including biomimicry and user-centred design