How we made our sketching sessions more accessible

Find out how we changed the way we work to make our sketching sessions more accessible

Back in January, we threw ourselves into the Alpha phases for 2 big RNID projects — designing an in-person hearing support service and improving the RNID volunteer experience.

Myself and my colleague Jess Newell organised sketching sessions so we could start storyboarding some ideas to develop for user testing.

We ran our first sketching session on Miro, an online whiteboard tool, using this format from Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days:

• Task 1: ‘Boot up’ by reviewing the key insights from Discovery, user need statements, inspiration we have collected from other organisations, and the ideas we came up with at the end of Discovery (10 minutes)
• Task 2: Come up with different ideas and then use the Crazy Eight exercise to come up with rapid variations of your solution (10 minutes)
• Task 3: Draw a single well-formed concept with all the details worked out. You can then use a storyboard to visualise how your idea might unfold and work in practice. (30 minutes)

Everyone voted on their favourite ideas afterwards using dot stickers on Miro.

A lot of people were on leave, so our sketching session mostly involved members of the Digital and Innovation team. Everyone was familiar with Miro or felt comfortable using it. We felt the session went well.

The second sketching session

For our second Alpha sprint, we knew we wanted to involve more of our Localities colleagues who work on our in-person services, since they deliver the services that we’re designing. We also knew that some of them use British Sign Language interpreters or other communication support. Some people also need to access documents in Word rather than other formats we sometimes use, like Miro or PowerPoint.

We tried to adapt the session by:

• Putting everything that was on the Miro board into a Word document for people who needed it
• Giving people the option to do their storyboards in Word or on paper and send them to us after the session, rather than using Miro
• Collating everyone’s ideas afterwards and putting them into a Word document so we could share them with the team
• Having the participants vote in Word by putting their initials next to the ideas that they thought would work the best

We tried to make the session accessible for everyone, but it didn’t quite work.

Here’s what went wrong

We didn’t share documents far enough in advance

People who are using interpreters, or other types of communication support, need to get any slides or documents at least 24 hours in advance. That gives them time to share them with their interpreter or support worker and review them themselves.

Because we had lots to plan and think about, people didn’t get the sketching session documents until a few minutes before the session started.

We used a tool that people weren’t familiar with

Although we tried to give people alternative ways to participate in the session, such as being able to write down ideas in a Word document or on paper, we still hosted the session on Miro. That meant that some participants were more focused on getting to grips with the technology than on coming up with ideas.

We didn’t allow enough time for discussion

We gave people plenty of time to sketch their ideas on their own, but we didn’t allow enough time to discuss them afterwards. People missed having time to talk through their ideas with others.

We didn’t ask people what they needed and wanted

We were so busy trying to get things working right we didn’t stop to ask people what they needed. If we had, we would have known how to design a session that worked for everyone.

A colleague kindly pointed out the session wasn’t accessible. We resolved to do it better for the next sprint.

Here’s what we did differently

Before we organised the next sketching session, we met with two colleagues from the Localities team, including someone who uses communication support. We asked them what works best for them and their team.

Based on their feedback, here’s how we changed the next session:

• We shared all the documents and background information in advance, so people could come to the session feeling prepared
• We created a storyboarding template in Word and asked people to tell their story in words rather than drawings
• We grouped people into teams or small groups to work on storyboards together to make the session more collaborative. We matched up people from the Design team with people from the Localities team so people could share their different perspectives.
• We built in discussion time, so each group could share their idea and we could talk about it together

How it worked

What went well

• The participants were really engaged in the session, and afterwards they said how useful if had been
• It was easier to collate all the ideas afterwards because everyone’s storyboards were in the same format
• We had more time to come up with ideas and collaborate because we shared the background materials in advance
• We were able to use the Word storyboards that people created during the session to create more detailed storyboards for user research

Part of a storyboard that we created for user research

What could still be improved

• Using a Word template meant that we lost the visual aspect of a sketching session. We tried to adapt the template to make it easy to add images, but it didn’t work that well.

I’ll be honest — I missed the sketches. But it was far more important to me that the people who were at the session felt comfortable, engaged, and included.

3 things we learned about creating accessible workshops

1. Ask your participants what will work for them before the workshop, even if no one has indicated that they have accessibility needs.
2. Share any slides or documents you plan to use in advance.
3. Choose a platform that everyone can use for the workshop. Whiteboarding tools like Miro are great for visualising ideas, but not everyone can use them.

As designers, we spend lots of time asking people externally what they need from us but can often miss the needs of the people we work with. Working through these really helped us to work better as a team and open up the way we do things at RNID.