UI Design Workshop

What is it?

• A UI workshop is an activity in which participants quickly sketch rough ideas for the user interface.
• These ideas can be written on a whiteboard, sticky notes, or sheets of paper. (A tall sticky note makes a great template for a mobile screen.)
• The workshop can be run with just a facilitator and a UX designer, but including the entire team is even better.
• At the end of the workshop, the participants can vote by adding dots to their favorites.
• Later, the best “low-fidelity” designs can serve as the basis for interactive prototypes or more complete designs.

Why use it?

• UI design workshops help take a high-level business process (such as an event storm) and turn it into something concrete that developers can begin working on.
• This activity generates new ideas and builds a shared understanding, particularly if the entire team participates.
• Jump-start development by creating just enough design for the team to begin working.
• A quick, rewarding activity like this one builds confidence and experience in team members who might be new to user experience design.
• Participants can produce the design assets they need to move forward, even if the team does not have a dedicated UX designer.

How to Facilitate

1. Describe what we’re sketching:

• User goal
• What size sticky
• Mobile-first?
• How long they have
• Use multiple stickies to depict the user flow

2. Everyone sketches - 10 min
3. Playback from each person (and put stickies on board) - 2 min per person
4. Gather feedback - 2-3 min per each person’s flow (green/red stickies with comments on what exactly they like/dislike)
5. Another round of sketching - 5-7 min
6. Mark each screen with a letter and number
7. More playback - 2 min per person (tell everyone to write down the letter/number combo of what they like)
8. Merge based on the votes/bingo

Alternate facilitation style

Instead of merging the designs in steps 6-8, ask the team to dot vote on elements of each deisgn. A UX designer can then use those sketches as inspiration for more detailed wireframes.

Further Information

• Wireflows: A UX Deliverable for Workflows and Apps
• 3 rapid prototyping exercises to improve your UX skills
• The “Tuesday” portion of the book Sprint provides some great ideas for facilitating a UI design workshop.
• Sketches from the gnome-software design sprint show “dot voting” on favorite designs.
• Agile UX Sketching routine on Gamestorming.com