Meta

👯 5 - 8 people

⏱️ 2 - 3 hours

Goal

Design studios are UX workshops that combine ideation and design critique with idea prioritisation and help teams collaborate and feel invested in the project.

Offline materials

Process

1. Problem definition and constraints

⏱️ 15 - 45 minutes

Ensure everyone is aware of the problem you are trying to solve. This step can be a presentation with slides, a group discussion, or anything in between.

2. Individual idea generation (diverge)

⏱️ 10 minutes

Give all team members a 6-up paper.

<aside> 💡 Optional (5 min.): ask each person to label each box with one of the personas and specific pain point or problem.

</aside>

Ask team members to generate 6 low-fidelity sketches (not words) of solutions for each persona/pain point pair.

3. Presentation and critique

⏱️ 3 minutes per person

Each participant can now present their work.

  1. State for whom the solution would work (persona).
  2. State which pain point is being addressed (hypothesis).
  3. Present the sketch.
  4. Rest of the team can now give critique and feedback.

4. Iterate and refine (emerge)

⏱️ 5 - 10 minutes

Ask each participant to take their original six ideas and, using the critique they just received, refine their thinking into one big idea on a single sheet of paper.

Once time is up, go through the presentation and critique process again.

5. Team idea generation (converge)

⏱️ 45 minutes

Ask each participant to use 4 dot votes to vote for the ideas they feel has the biggest chance for success.

Ask the team to sketch

<aside> 💡 Create a 'parking lot' for good ideas that don't make the cut.

</aside>

Use the artefacts created in the Design Studio to create refined Prototypes that can later be validated.

Resources