Boost UX collaboration: 34 workshop activities for engaging users effectively
In my previous article I talked about the recent UX Workshop on Workshops our UX team did to boost everyone’s confidence in proposing and doing more workshops. In preparing for that workshop I uncovered 122 unique workshop activities. I eventually divided that list into the following three sub categories.
- Workshops with actual users — 34 activities (this article)
- Process what you’ve learned with your product team — 21 activities
- Ideate with your product team — 44 activities
In this article I list out the 34 unique activities I found that are good to use in workshops with actual users.
Sources
The activities listed in this article came from the following sources:
- Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo
- 33 Activity Ideas for Remote UX Workshops by Jordan Bowman
- Nielson Norman Group’s Facilitating UX Workshops: Study Guide
Workshops with actual users
You’ve got your users all in a room together, how do you get them to talk about themselves, their jobs, their problems, and their expectations? The following activities complement field studies and individual interviews by giving you a chance to draw more specific information from your users as a group. Engaging your users in a group setting with these creative and focused activities can prompt them to reveal things they may not have been able to articulate on their own.
Sub-categories of activities
- Get to know the people — 6 activities
- Get to know their jobs and processes — 16 activities
- Get to know their problems and wins — 11 activities
- Experience it — 1 activities
- Ideate with actual users — 4 activities
Get to know the people — 6 activities
1.1 — Empathy Map
Draw a face and fill in the following categories: hearing, seeing, saying, doing and feeling — but have the actual users fill it in for themselves.
1.2 — Pain-Gain Map
Identify a person (themselves when doing with actual users) or job title, on the board make two columns, pains and gains. Now have the group list all the pains this person may go through and all the gains they may receive.
1.3 — Context Map
Map these specific external forces on an organization, individual, situation, job title or product: political factors, economic climate, trends, technology factors, customer needs and uncertainties.
1.4 — Spectrum Mapping
Decide on a topic, then ask the participants to post up stickies with their opinions on the topic. When everyone has posted, then as a group rearrange all the post-its to the left and right of the topic in a what you perceive is its spectrum order, then discuss. You will see the size, scope and spectrum of opinions.
1.5 — Show and Tell
Decide on a topic or problem beforehand, then ask your users to bring any object with them that they think relates to the topic. Have every participant present their object and how they think it relates and discuss.
1.6 — Show Me Your Values
Decide on a topic you want actual users to talk about. Have them each find a picture that visually represents a value they ascribe to the topic. Have each of them present their picture and tell a story that demonstrates that value related to that topic.
Get to know their job and processes — 16 activities
2.1 — The Aliens Have Landed
Imagine aliens have landed on earth and they want to get to know about your company, product or job, but it has to be explained with five pictures. Each participant gathers five images to communicate the concept. Everyone presents their images and discuss as a group.
2.2 — Context Map
Map these specific external forces on an organization, individual, situation, job title or product: political factors, economic climate, trends, technology factors, customer needs and uncertainties.
2.3 — Post the Path
Often groups have undocumented processes or some individuals do things differently than others in the group. Identify a process and have the participants post up the process together and discuss areas of difference, confusion or lack of details.
2.4 — Staple Yourself to Something
Pick an object with the group that relates to their job (like a medical claim, resume or other document), then have the group draw out the big steps and small steps the object goes through until it reaches its successful destination.
2.5 — Journey Mapping
Have your users create their own journey map. A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. Includes an actor, scenario + expectations, journey phases, actions, mindsets, emotions and opportunities.
2.6 — Experience Mapping
Have your users create their own experience map. Experience maps are the parent to a journey map, they are more generalized and not tied to a specific product or service. They typically have 4 swim-lanes: phases, actions, thoughts and mindsets/emotions. Experience maps offer a general human perspective, not specific to a particular user type or product and depicts events in chronological order.
2.7 — Service Blueprinting
Have your users create their own service blueprint. Service blueprints are part two of journey maps and visualize the relationships between different service components like people, props and processes. A service blueprint is tied to a specific service and has 4 swim-lanes: customer actions, frontstage actions, backstage actions and support processes.
2.8 — Atomize
Take any item, process, team, or initiative and break it down into its smaller parts. Put the item on the board, then ask the participants to split it into its first layer of components below it, then split those into their sub parts and so on until you exhaust splitting, then discuss.
2.9 — The Virtuous Cycle
Pick a process that warrants repeating, such as the customer experience, knowledge capture and creation, or strategic planning. Black box the current process on the board so the discussion focuses on what is happening outside the box. Ask the group what happens before the process and after, post that on the board. Now draw a line connecting the end to the beginning and discuss what needs to happen to get back and start again.
2.10 — Business Model Canvas
Have your users draw their business model canvas on the board, have them draw themselves as the business not the actual business they work for. Business model canvas includes these sections: key partners, key activities, key resources, value props, customer relationships, channels, customer segments, cost structure, revenue streams.
2.11 — History Map
Draw a long timeline on the board with years at certain intervals, ask participants to post on the timeline when they each joined the company or department. Now ask participants to post on the timeline key events in their company history, personal history and/or team history like successes, lessons, changes, etc. Discuss the results to fill in the timeline further.
2.12 — Stakeholder Analysis
With the group create a list of stakeholders associated with a project or job position (or anything), then create a 2x2 grid, the x-axis is “Power” and the y-axis is “Interest.” Now map all the stakeholders that were listed in part 1 onto the 2x2 grid and discuss. Mapping the stakeholders this way helps prompt a strategy discussion about them.
2.13 — Give-and-Take Matrix
Have participants list all the actors in a system. Now put the actors in a table with the first column being all the actors and the first row across the top being all the actors as well. Now for each intersection in the table write what the actor in the left column offers the actor in the top column they are intersecting with. Do this for all the actors and discuss.
2.14 — Storyboarding
As a group draw out a specific user scenario or story in sequential panels like a comic book, typically done in eight panels. Can also be done individually or in teams, then discuss.
2.15 — Concept Map
Like a mind map, start with goal or concept in middle and use lines, symbols, color, images and words to build nodes in a hierarchy. Either done as a group or individually then discuss.
2.16 — Heart, Hand, Mind
Take an issue, product or course of action and ask the participants to post-up under three headings: What makes it emotionally engaging? What makes it tangible and practical? What makes it logical and sensible? Then discuss.
Get to know their problems and wins — 11 activities
3.1 — Speedboat
Draw a speedboat on the board moving fast through the water with anchors underneath it. The boat represents the product, service or goal under discussion. Now have participants post-up on the different parts of the image, things on the anchor are things that are holding the product up, things in the engine are speeding it up. The visual metaphor helps the team identify and discuss the landscape quicker.
3.2 — Fishbone Diagram
Write a statement that explains exactly what the problem is, including how and when it occurs, at the fish’s head. Then draw broad categories as lines, no more than 10, coming out of the fish’s back like: users, software, communication and so on. Then draw more bones off of those 10 that are individual causes. You’ll get to the root causes.
3.3 — Five Why’s
Begin with a broad question about why the problem has occurred, then try to answer it. After that then ask why that first answer happened and keep going five layers deep asking why each time, the last layer is likely the root cause of the problem.
3.4 — Draw the Problem
Every participant draws the problem as they would explain it to a peer. Then compare and contrast everyone’s drawings. Visualizing is critical, it’s ok if they create more metaphorical drawings.
2.16 — Heart, Hand, Mind
Take an issue, product or course of action and ask the participants to post-up under three headings: What makes it emotionally engaging? What makes it tangible and practical? What makes it logical and sensible? Then discuss.
3.5 — Understanding Chain
List out all the audiences involved with the problem space. Brainstorm as many questions as the group can for each of those audiences. Now map those questions to one or more story sequences like situation, complication, or resolution. The activity will help the group focus in on the hardest and most important questions they need answered.
1.4 — Spectrum Mapping
Decide on a topic, then ask the participants to post up stickies with their opinions on the topic. When everyone has posted, then as a group rearrange all the post-its to the left and right of the topic in a what you perceive is its spectrum order, then discuss. You will see the size, scope and spectrum of opinions.
1.5 — Show and Tell
Decide on a topic or problem beforehand, then ask your users to bring any object with them that they think relates to the topic. Have every participant present their object and how they think it relates and discuss.
1.6 — Show Me Your Values
Decide on a topic you want actual users to talk about. Have them each find a picture that visually represents a value they ascribe to the topic. Have each of them present their picture and tell a story that demonstrates that value related to that topic.
3.6 — Help Me Understand
Post the discussion topic followed by columns for Who, What, When, Where and How. Tell the participants we want to know all your questions and concerns, then have them post-up to each of the previous columns. Group similar posts and respond to the largest groupings.
3.7 — Fishbowl
Arrange the participants in two circles, one surrounding the other. Participants in the inner circle will discuss the topic and the outer circle will observe and record the discussions they hear. Everyone switch roles after 15 minutes. Then present what was discussed.
Experience it — 1 activity
4.1 — Bodystorming
First go out and observe, if you are making software for a hospital then go do your normal work at an actual hospital. Second, try it out, make props and prototypes to physically act out the user’s experience there in the actual location. Third, reflect on what happens and why.
Ideate with actual users — 4 activities
5.1 — Synesthesia
Examine a topic, prototype, concept or potential solution by assigning participants to one of the five different senses: sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. Have them then describe the topic strictly from that sense.
5.2 — Wizard of Oz
Participants pair off and sit back to back. One is designated the computer system and the other is designated the user of the system. They now verbally act out the application concept staying true to their role as they interpret it.
5.3 — Pre-Mortem
Once a product or feature has been conceptualized, basically ask the group “What will go wrong?” and have them post-up the risks and elephants in the room to identify potential problems at the beginning of the process.
5.4 — Plus/Delta
Evaluate any idea, product or action by making a t-chart on the board, left-side is “Plus”, right side is “Delta” (which means “change”). Have them post-up what is positive and what should be changed on the chart, then discuss.
More on UX workshops
This article is part of a series of articles I’ve written on UX workshops.
Unlocking the power of UX workshops: a comprehensive guide to purpose, benefits, and construction
Unlocking Creativity: A Deep Dive into Our Two-Day UX Workshop on Workshops
