Sharing our ‘Fluxx essentials’ with future product and service designers
“Within a morning session, they’ve got a set of tools that they can apply to the projects that they’re working on…a set of tools that will help them prototype ideas quickly to get started, to get out of their seats and into the real world.”
Andrew Sleigh, Product design lecturer, University of Brighton
Before the world was gripped by global pandemic, my colleague, Gemma Stafford and I were able to spend a joyous three hours with Product design students at the University of Brighton. We shared with them some of Fluxx’s essential ways of working and the tools we use to identify assumptions and build experiments.
We focused on three main outcomes:
- Learning how to embrace uncertainty
- Understanding the difference between experiments and ‘traditional’ customer research
- Understanding some basic formats for experimentation and how/when to apply them
I asked Andrew Sleigh, lecturer on the course, why he had invited Fluxx in and what he thought the students would gain from having participated in our session:
Andrew, Why did you invite Fluxx in today to share some of our essential tools and techniques?
“As product designers, my students are often focused on making physical things. Increasingly those things, those products, have a service component. In fact, increasingly many of the products are almost entirely services, so service design is a way of thinking that the students need to embrace more and more in their practice.
One of the things I like about Fluxx is this really strong emphasis on prototyping. We have workshops in the university where students can prototype physical things, but often they struggle to prototype something that’s more intangible. They need really simple methods to prototype service concepts really quickly.”
And what do you think the students will take from the session?
“I think the outcome looks really constructive: there was a lot of energy in the room, lots of ideas, lots of people testing things out.
Within a morning session, they’ve got a set of tools that they can apply to the projects that they’re working on now for their final briefs, a set of tools that will help them prototype ideas quickly to get started, to get out of their seats and into the real world.”
Why is it valuable for the students to have businesses like Fluxx run session like this?
“Students get a lot of lectures from members of staff, but it’s always interesting for them to hear from practicing designers, people who are putting the things that they’re learning into practice in their working lives.
I think the energy and confidence that comes from doing this every day in your job comes across to the students and is a very powerful way for them to learn.”
We love sharing our tools and techniques with up-and-coming designers: it gives them a glimpse into our professional practice and the kind of things we do everyday for businesses. If you are interested in training to build innovation capability within your business or organisation contact Dean, dean@fluxx.uk.com, and he’ll be happy to discuss your requirements.
