Collecting information to build a better product

Gathering a lot of valuable insights, in an efficient way and in a short period time is the main goal of collaborative workshops. They are designed to bring together different perspectives, whether from the stakeholders, the users or both. Each workshop must have a defined objective and purpose. Its structure can be quite flexible, and should be tailored to suit the project’s needs and requirements.

Workshops can be used to:

• Understand requirements by getting to know the business and its objectives.
• Help stakeholders to think like and empathise with their users.
• Understand the needs of stakeholders and users better.
• Collect more in-depth information about the subject.
• Improve communication between stakeholders.
• Bring clarity and get teams truly aligned. 
• Work out ideas and solutions.
• Analise informations.

During the workshop it’s important that participants feel comfortable with sharing their opinion and discussing different points of view. One of the best ways to get the conversation flowing is to get people out of their chairs. The facilitator hands out post-it notes and pens, and encourages people to scribble down their ideas and stick them on the wall. Other props and materials might also be used. Normally, it also involves a series of games and exercises to extract and prioritise information, in a fun and enjoyable way.  

Workshops will usually achieve much more than a typical meeting and they aren’t particularly expensive to run. 

Stakeholders workshop

Normally, stakeholders don’t have much time available so workshops are a great way to take advantage of the little time they might have in their agendas and get them involved in the research and design process. 

By bringing together people who represent different teams involved in a project we get distinct perspectives from across the organisation, including personal and department goals and expectations. The purpose of the workshop can be, for example, to understand the client’s needs and what’s expected from the project or to take advantage of the client’s knowledge to draw information about the target group, typical user paths and pain points. 

Users workshop

Users workshops are about bringing together a group of users and get them to talk about their opinions, behaviours and feelings. Although they rely on people telling what they do, instead of showing what they do, they can still provide invaluable insights at the start of a project that help guide future research efforts. 

To ensure there’s a right representation present and the desired outcomes are met, it should involve some time in the selection and profiling of users beforehand. 

Gathering users and stakeholders

If we’re designing or redesigning a product or a service why not getting the two parts that will benefit the most from a well-designed solution - the ones providing it and the ones using it? 

Sometimes what the user needs and what the organisation think they need might be quite diverging. The right exercises and group dynamics can lead to interesting discoveries that we can’t get from other forms of user research.

By conducting creative workshops and activities with stakeholders and users, we can create a list of project requirements that truly represent what customers want.