Collections product design studio

UX, workshop facilitation

brief

My product team had expressed interest in being a part of a product design studio to kick off an upcoming feature redesign. Setting aside this time as a team is a wonderful way to get buy-in on what is ultimately built, and it gives folks that may not think this way (or sketch!) a chance to stretch in a different way. 

But we aren't co-located!  

My challenge here was to share research and build excitement for the design studio, where we would all use a remote meeting tool for many (many!) hours.

Process

I used a learning strategy of a 'flipped classroom', where instructional content is reviewed prior to coming together to actively work. Wanting it to be somewhat fun to open and engage with, I built a "dossier" of the agenda, product/feature goals, problem statement, personas and scenarios that we would use to focus our time together. I used the physicality of envelopes and attached external sheets to give the busy developers the option to read at a high level, or go deeper into data if they had the time and interest.

Also included was paper pre-formed into a crazy 8 format for quick sketching, stickies and sharpies.