Design Workshop Activities

Get a window in someone else's life. Gain access to the parts of someone's life you might not otherwise see by having them keep a photo diary for a few days or weeks.

Have you ever been in the middle of a discussion with a group that is trying to reach a decision about something and realized that you actually don’t have much of a stake in what happens? Or, have you ever been advocating for a group to take things in a certain direction and notice that others (for whom the outcome will not be relevant) are arguing just as passionately as you are?

Many times when we are trying to make decisions as a group, involved parties care about the outcome, but at varying levels. This tool helps identify who actually has a stake in the outcome and allows a group to get perspective on which voice(s) should be a priority in the decision process.

Use the Training Needs Assessment canvas collect information from clients, participants and research to prepare a future training course, program or workshop.

1. What did we set out to do?
2. Did we achieve it?

• If yes, what helped us achieve it (people, processes, etc.)
• If not, what would have helped us achieve it?
  
  

3. What did we do well?

4. Opportunities for change?

5. What are we learning?

6. Insights based on this experience.

7. What to take forward?

Create a meat that mimics the experience of your product.

This one is fresh out of the oven. Put your chef hat on, and design a meal, cocktail or mocktail that represents the essence of your product or experience.

Prototype space to evoke emotions and understand behaviors.

Repurpose your space in the name of design. Rearrange a room to role play how a user might experience your service or product. Try out these methods early on in prototyping.

A tool that helps a designer assess the demands a product/design puts on the user. This tool can be used by anyone creating a product, design, or service and wants to critically assess its demand on users.

Design a space that mirrors your product's experience.

Sometimes there's no substitute for the real thing. Test your assumptions by launching your business or service for one week.

Create the best prototypes by turning up the competition.

Sometimes it's the thrill of competition that unlocks genius in rapid prototyping. Gather some of your colleagues, set some ground rules, and go for the gold.

Iterate your way to better prototype.

Iteration can teach you something new about your prototype. If you flex this muscle early on in the process, it'll make your ideas better - and stronger - in the long run.

If curiosity and empathy can be a driver of creativity, there is no reason why they need be restricted to the observation of others. A range of technologies increasingly allow us to track, monitor and in doing so discover things about our own behaviours. Much of creativity is centred on making visible the invisible and for this reason spending time experimenting tools which allow us to do this may help us reflect on the potential for digital tools to be part of our creative toolbox.

Create a design prototype without a single line of code.

Creating digital tools can be expensive, so it's critical to have confidence in your solution before starting to build. One trick is to test potential features of your digital solution using existing tools.