Design Studio

A collaborative workshop where participants—often from cross-functional teams—generate and share UI design ideas to solve a specific problem.

Overview

A Design Studio is a collaborative workshop where participants—often from cross-functional teams—generate and share UI design ideas to solve a specific problem. The process typically involves brainstorming, sketching, and presenting concepts, followed by group critique and iteration. This encourages creativity, rapid exploration of multiple solutions, and alignment across stakeholders. By combining diverse perspectives, the design studio helps teams identify innovative, user-centered solutions efficiently.

MY ROLE

UX Researcher

Workshop Facilitator

COLLABORATORS

Product Management

Product Owner

Product Analyst

Software Engineer

UX Researcher

Interaction Designer

METHODS

Mural Workshop

DURATION

2 hours

Workshop Steps

AGENDA

Welcome, whiteboarding tool overview, introductions - ask for cameras on, ice breaker
Scope
Choose personas
Sketch - Crazy 8's
Review & Critique - The Thinking Hats
Vote

The facilitator welcomes participants, setting a positive and collaborative tone.
Outline the workshop objectives, emphasizing the importance of aligning on research goals and strategies.
Share the agenda and ground rules for participation (e.g., respectful listening, staying engaged, contributing ideas).
Provide a brief walkthrough of the tool being used.
Demonstrate how to navigate around the board, zooming in/out, add sticky notes, shapes, and comments to ensure everyone is comfortable using the tool.
Ask each participant to introduce themselves with their name, role, and connection to the project.
Icebreaker: try a quick interactive activity, such as brainstorming "the worst possible user experience" for a product, to engage creativity and humor.
If all participants collaborate often you don't necessarily need and Icebreaker.

1

Welcome, whiteboarding tool overview, introductions - ask for cameras on, ice breaker

2

Scope

The scope can take various forms, such as a problem statement, a product feature, or project deliverables. It may also reference specific Jira stories that require validation or further insights.

It is important to keep the scope as narrow as possible to maintain focus and drive meaningful outcomes. Keeping the scope focused ensures that the workshop remains productive, allowing participants to dive deep into solving a clearly defined problem or task.

During this step encourage participants to take notes for the sketching step.

3

Choosing Personas

Choosing the right personas is crucial to ensure that UX research and design efforts focus on the most relevant user groups. Personas represent distinct archetypes of users, each with their own goals, behaviors, pain points, and needs. Selecting the appropriate personas helps teams understand who they are designing for and what problems they need to solve.

Why using personas are import:

By designing with specific personas in mind, teams can create tailored solutions that meet user needs effectively.
Shared personas foster a common understanding across teams (e.g., product, design, engineering), ensuring consistency in decision-making.
Understanding personas allows teams to empathize with users, leading to more intuitive, user-centered designs.
Personas provide a framework to filter out irrelevant features or use cases that don’t align with primary users' needs.

4

Sketching

This section changes slightly depending on if the workshop is in-person or remote. If the meeting is in-person everyone sketches on paper and hangs the designs on the wall. If remote the workshop is done using a whiteboarding tool and there are more options for sketching:

Sketch on paper, take a pic, and upload an image
Using a drawing tool, take a screenshot, and upload images
Using a wireframe tool, take a screenshot and upload images

The brainstorming tool I use is Crazy 8s. It is a fast-paced, structured brainstorming exercise used to generate a variety of ideas in a short period of time. The goal is to push creativity by rapidly sketching eight distinct ideas in 8 minutes. It’s often used to explore solutions to a specific problem or feature.

There are 3 rounds of sketching. Each round is 8 minutes. Time is flexible if remote.

Generate 8 ideas.
Take 1 or 2 ideas and start high level UI or possibly a process flow.
Pick the critical piece of the UI and fully flush it out.

4

Reviewing and Critique

The Six Thinking Hats, developed by Edward de Bono, is a structured technique used during the review and critique stage of a Design Studio. It encourages participants to view ideas from multiple perspectives, promoting constructive feedback and balanced decision-making.

Go around a review 1 person's design at a time. Review the design(s) and ask any questions you have.
Critique the design using the 6 Thinking Hats and add comments as stickies.
Vote

Benefits

Encourages balanced feedback by focusing on both positive and critical aspects.
Helps prevent groupthink by ensuring diverse perspectives are heard.
Promotes constructive critique rather than unstructured or overly negative discussions.

This method leads to more thoughtful, actionable feedback that supports the refinement of ideas.

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