What do user workshops have to offer?
Workshops with users are part of a creative ideation process to develop design solutions together with users. Ideally, we recruit expert users (technical lead users) who are both users of the system and stand out from ordinary users on four levels: 1) an openness to new things, 2) expertise, 3) involvement and 4) opinion leadership
In their role as expert users, they are able to give a very good assessment of what is pleasant or useful to them. Moreover, they bring valuable skills in their role as lead users in order to improve or sometimes even completely to rethink systems. This adds important external impulses to the design process for our customers.
How are they embedded in the UX process?
In the UX process, first the usability context is studied and then the user requirements are established. In other words, we will have carried out contextual interviews and acted as an observer in various situations in which the system is used. At the same time, pain points, in particular, and needs of the users are explored: “What needs of our users have we yet to address in our system?”
This leads to determining the requirements for the system: “How should the system be able to respond to the pain points and needs of the users?”
We can imagine these user requirements as a search field that provides the framework of the workshop: “Where should we search for innovative solutions?” “Where does the search no longer make sense given certain restrictions?”
What is the output?
In moderated creative ideation sessions, we work with consumers or expert users to find innovative design solutions. The task is to find the most promising concept from a variety of ideas, which are often only expressed in vague terms. We structure and select meaningful criteria such as
- Innovation value / innovative strength
- Marketability
- Technical feasibility
- User experience
After an additional working session, the concepts that can be transformed into your prototyping process are presented at the end of the workshop.