Materials from Agile Experience Meetup NYC April 29, 2010. Document 1 of 3.

1. Agile Experience Design Meetup NYC April 29, 2010
Design Studio Workshop
What's a design studio session?
A design studio session is a creative exercise that helps a
group of people collaboratively explore concepts and
understand a problem visually. Working from a shared
context, individual team members sketch solutions to a
problem, discuss them as a group, and then iterate
concepts to improve them. The outcome of a design
studio is a deeper understanding of a problem space and
visual artifacts that reflect the team's consensus about
the trade-offs of different solutions.
Serious drawing skills are not required for success with
this technique, just a willingness to participate and an
ability to draw basic shapes. Feel free to explore crazy ideas and have fun!
In the notes below, I’ve provided an overview of the preparation and timing I used tonight so you can
organize and facilitate your own design studio workshop sessions once you’ve had a chance to
experience it yourself.
How do we prepare?
Define the problem - You’ll get the best results using this technique if everyone in the group cooperates
to solve the same problem. Depending on how well the group knows the problem domain, you may
choose to schedule a meeting with the working group prior to the design studio session to identify and
agree on the user stories or scenario you will sketch together. Before the design studio session, prepare
materials the group can reference as they work. Depending on the situation, I’ve used index cards with
user stories, a hand-written poster with a scenario we created on the spot or a printed packet with a
business case and user profiles (personas). If you do a series of design studios in sequence with some
space between, the group has a chance to think about the issues outside the session and can start to
really gain momentum when they come together to work.
Assemble creative supplies- The basic materials are large pieces of unlined drawing paper (e.g.
newsprint pads, butcher paper, 11x17 printer paper) and markers. I like to also provide stickies, scissors,
clear and blue tape and additional colored markers when available.
Choose a facilitator - The facilitator will need a copy of these instructions and a way to keep time (e.g
kitchen timer, pomodoro, iPhone)
Author: Lane Halley Page 1 of 3
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States
Photo: lanehalley

2. Agile Experience Design Meetup NYC April 29, 2010
Design Studio Workshop
Design Studio timing
For this workshop, I’ve planned for a 90 minute design studio session with 40 people (eight groups of
five people). When you use this technique with your teams, you can change the group size or timing of
the sections to suit your needs. For example, you have fewer groups, allocate more time for “individual
drawing” or “converge, redraw new concept” and subtract it from “large group presentation.” Creating
smaller teams allows people more time to share and get feedback for their ideas but the overall timing
would remain the same. The Ideal team size is three to five people.
When you schedule your own sessions, don’t forget to add some additional time before and after to set
up and clean up the room. You may also want to remind your participants to arrive on time, as it’s hard
to join mid-way into the event.
Session introduction (5 minutes)
Review session timing.
Organize participants into teams of five people each.
Distribute and review the user stories or personas and scenarios you’ll focus on in the session.
Tip: Write the session timing on a poster or white board to help people keep track.
Individual drawing (15 minutes)
Each person creates rough screen sketches or storyboards that illustrate the user experience of
the user stories or scenario.
Tip: Remind people to have fun and be creative! Feel free to use lots of paper, colored pens, stickies,
tape and scissors.
Presentation in groups (15 minutes)
Taking turns, each person in the group explains their solution to the group.
During this time, the other people can take notes, but there’s no
conversation/comments/questions allowed. This is the time to LISTEN.
The group is responsible for getting through all concepts in the allotted time.
Tip: Ask people to try this. Instead of talking about the different features of your solution, tell a story
about how a specific person would interact with your concept to accomplish the activities from the
user stories or scenario.
Discussion in groups, record feedback (15 minutes)
The team then discusses each of the concepts one at a time. Talk about which parts of the
concept are working and which parts need further thought.
Record comments on each individual sketch (stickies are helpful for this).
The group is responsible for getting through all concepts in the allotted time.
Author: Lane Halley Page 2 of 3
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States
Photo: lanehalley

3. Agile Experience Design Meetup NYC April 29, 2010
Design Studio Workshop
Tip: Ask people to try this: instead of saying “I like this” or “I don’t like this” evaluate the ideas using
the user story or scenario, e.g. “This works because…” or “I don’t see how this solution solves this
part of the scenario…”
Converge, redraw new concept (20 minutes)
Elect a person to draw the group concept.
Each team collaborates to produce a concept sketch that represents the best direction produced
by their group.
Tip: Remind people that sometimes the new concept may include elements from several concept
sketches, other times the group converges around one concept.
Large group presentation (20 minutes)
In the final 20 minutes, each group presents their converged sketch to the other groups.
Tip: When using this technique on your own projects, don’t forget to capture any issues or comments
about unsolved issues, areas for further exploration/research, etc.
Congratulations! You’ve now completed the design studio workshop! I’d love to hear how your sessions
went. Drop me a line at lbh.inc@gmail.com or @thinknow on twitter (hashcodes #agileux and
#designstudio)
Author: Lane Halley Page 3 of 3
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States
Photo: lanehalley