A general technique that's helpful in many kinds of UX workshops and design ideation is to first have team members work independently to create diverging ideas and solutions. Then, as a separate step, everybody works together to converge on the final outcome.
A common problem during user experience ideation is when design teams are stuck on a traditional way of thinking about aspects of the design. Here are some tips for breaking out of such functional fixedness.
Depending on how much your team can spend, your team might want to use tablets, document cameras, smartphones, or your computers’ webcams to share sketches.
Even though in-person UX sessions are typically ideal, sometimes budget or travel restrictions necessitate remote UX work. This article presents guidelines for remote user research, UX workshops or presentations, and collaboration.
Collaborative sketching is a powerful tool for building buy-in for design decisions; however, it can be difficult to get stakeholders comfortable with the idea of drawing in a group setting. These variables help make group sketching more productive and effective with stakeholders.
Ideation in the UX design process can be conducted remotely: without having team members in the same room. This can be done synchronously (everybody participates at the same time) or asynchronously (people contribute at different times).
In ideation and many other UX activities, we want to include stakeholders and get them to participate in sketching UI prototypes and other visuals. Here are four tactics to getting everybody to sketch in your UX workshops.
UX designers answer the question of when they prefer to use hand-drawn sketches of a user interface design vs. pixel-perfect designs generated on a computer.
Asynchronous remote ideation allows people to contribute ideas whenever it’s convenient to do so, but synchronous sessions lead to faster results and more team building.
Use the affinity diagramming method with stakeholders and members to efficiently categorize then prioritize UX ideas, research findings, and any other rich topics. Work together to quickly develop a shared understanding among your team.
Don't just show your proposed user-interface solution. Set the stage with the necessary background for understanding the design, and follow through with visuals that tell the full UX story.
Remote UX work is challenging, but using digital collaboration and communication tools can mitigate some of its difficulties. Our recommendations are based on NN/g’s experience as a remote company.
"I can't draw," is a common phrase heard in ideation. But ideation happens in early stages of design and is meant to be messy. This video shows how to use basic shapes to convey UI elements.
