Finding materials for your UX workshop toolkit
Introduction
Facilitating exercises (empathy maps, user journeys, card sorts, etc.) can be an essential part of a good design practice. Getting people in a room to ideate, sketch, and evolve ideas provides transparency to the design process and allows an easy way for people from a variety of backgrounds to get involved in solutioning.
The wise facilitator will come prepared across a variety of sessions if they create a useful toolkit of materials to help these exercises run smoothly. Below, a list of such materials for your own UX facilitation toolkit, one we continue to try to evolve.
Please add feedback in the comments if anything is missing or if you find a better product!
Usable materials
Materials you will use up as you facilitate your sessions.
- Sharpies (fine point) for sketching without too much detail
- Post-its (Super sticky, classic yellow) for idea generation
- Printer paper for sketching
- Note cards (3x5, unruled) for card sorts and taxonomy
- Red voting Dots, Green voting dots, Blue voting dots, Yellow voting dots
- Blue tack and blue tape for hanging things
- Mr. Sketch Markers for small-team sketching, different colors to represent different individuals. Scented for creativity!
- Big paper (sticky) for taking away post it notes and separating note exercises into buckets
Fixed materials
The nuts and bolts stuff you’ll buy up front.
- Tape dispenser for hanging stuff
- Kitchen timer for keeping people on time
- Pencil box for holding the little things
- Tackle box for holding all the things
- Play dough for creative fun time
