Conducting a remote design principles workshop for LifeSG
Half a year in after I joined LifeSG as a UX designer, I had the opportunity to plan and facilitate a 1-hour “quick” design principles workshop for the team. This writing describes how it went in late Sept 2021, when we were all working from home. The collaborative tools we used were Miro board and Zoom.
PS: we are still working from home at the date of publish.
Design principles - what and why it matters?
Design principles are abstract guidelines to describe the values that are core to the design. They should be viewed as goals to be delivered to the audience by the product. They are meant to help align and frame design priorities to ensure consistency and delightfulness throughout product experience.
Since design principles represent core values shared within the team, I thought it would be meaningful if designers (including our UX writer) could come together to collectively brainstorm on the design principles, in a workshop setting.
Workshop Facilitation
A week before the workshop
I described the purpose and importance of the design principles and asked the participants to write down at least 3 design principles on the virtual board prepared. The design principles have to
- Express the purpose of our product
- Consider how the design principles impact users
- Be authentic and genuine
- Be easy to remember
- Complement with existing content guidelines
A resource vault that I find useful to get inspiration from, and would recommended to anyone, is https://principles.design/.
During the workshop
Before the workshop began, I reminded on the purpose of the workshop, and ran through the itinerary and house rules.
📢 Activity: Pitch yo’ design principles
It was a round table mini pitching session where each participant was asked to explain the rationale for their chosen principles. ~2 minutes were allocated for each participant.
In the middle of the “pitching” session, I realised that there was themes developing among the design principles. We had to drop activity 3 and 4 as I believed that they might not be constructive, since there was already some consensus forming. The participants were then asked to perform affinity mapping, which is grouping similar design principles, instead.
💰 Activity: $100 vote
This has always been one of my favourite activities for workshop facilitation, because it deals with… real money. Nope, just kidding. I just like to observe participants putting a value on how much an idea worth to them. For this workshop, it would mean a design principle’s value. $100 vote can help to spice up dot voting.
Each participant would have $100 (post-it). They were asked to invest any amount of money in more than 1 design principles that they believe in, within the $100 budget. They had to create new post-its with the chosen amount and paste them next to the selected design principles. They were also allowed to invest in their own written design principles. No discussion were allowed, but at the end of the activity, participants were selected to explain their choices.
We identified 5 key themes that should be core values of LifeSG design, based on the total amount calculated for each grouping (the higher the amount, the more value it has).
💎 Activity: Refinement of the design principles
Since we were ahead of time, we refined the design principles into proper statements together, during the workshop. This step was originally planned to be done after the workshop.
The purpose of having proper statements is to ensure that the design principles are narrative and easy to remember, so that they can be applied by anyone in the team.
At the end of the workshop, our UX writer, Carrie, gave the final touch to the statements with her magic dust.
5 design principles for LifeSG
Disclaimer: the following doodles are not official representation.
Not in order of importance or priority:
#1 Empathy: put users first
Guide users through different moments of their life.
#2 Accessibility: be inclusive
Keep in mind the varying needs of our diverse groups of users when designing.
#3 Simplicity: be straightforward
Make information digestible for users to understand.
#4 Reliability: provide trustworthy information
Ensure information is accurate, timely and suited for user’s circumstance.
#5 Conversational: use warm and friendly language
Use approachable and simple language that is easy for users of all ages.
Some tips from this workshop
(1) Ask your potential participants to do homework
- Long workshops can cost participants’ time and some participants may not be able to stay focus after a long period of time. So, I try to keep them as short as possible. By preparing in advance, it would save time for more important workshop activities.
- However, do take note that, as most people have their own day-to-day tasks to complete, not all participants would be able complete the homework before hand. Help participants by making sure that your homework is simple enough to be completed within a short time frame. Also, do make periodic reminders for your participants.
(2) Don’t be afraid of improvising and changing your workshop plan on the day itself
- Sometimes things might not run as planned during the workshop. Do be prepared to make some changes.
Lastly, if you are thinking of organising your own design principles workshop, you may want to include other stakeholders, such as product managers and engineers, depending on how your organisation is structured. It may help in contributing views from more angles.
I’m not workshop facilitation expert. Please do drop us a comment if you find this article helpful, or if there are any feedbacks or questions! Thank you for reading! ✨
Special thanks to:
Michelle Chen and Fugene Choy, for the support and trust in this mission
Carrie Lee, for her Midas touch on the design principles copy
And also, all other LifeSG designers for being so gung-ho in participation. They are Liting Kway, Selig Chow, Timothy Loh, Shiwei Ng, Cherie Chung and Geena Lok (LifeSG Intern)
All of you without whom this workshop would not have been possible. I’m grateful and thankful to be part of this team.
