Design Thinking: How to Sketch User Experiences

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We can bring this course to you and run it for a fixed all-inclusive fee no matter where you are. All you have to do is provide the delegates and the meeting room.

Course Schedule

There are no scheduled dates for this course. If you want us to run this seminar as a public course, click on the button below. Once we get 8 like-minded individuals we'll organise a public course and let you know.

Overview: Design Thinking: How to Sketch User Experiences

Iterative design is now widely accepted as best practice for designing easy-to-use technology. However, all too often when developing early prototypes, designers get fixated on a small number of design solutions and do not fully explore the potential design space. Instead, they tend to resort to one or two solutions they have seen in the past, or a solution that is currently in vogue. Like evolution, design works best when dozens of different design ideas are generated, refined and a few of the best are iterated upon.

Although most design teams want to generate a variety of designs, they often fail to do so because they feel insufficiently creative or because they feel they can't draw. But creativity — 'design thinking' — can be learnt like other user interface design skills. This seminar reveals the practitioner secrets behind divergent thinking and will teach you how to think like a user experience design pro. As well as a set of comprehensive notes, you will leave the seminar with ideas, sketches and techniques that you will be able to apply immediately to your work.

“Great idea generation techniques.” – Gemma Kinnear, HSBC.

Printable pdf course description for this seminar

Suggested business case to convince your boss (MS Word format).

This design studio workshop is aimed at

This course is for you if you are looking for ways to break out of the mental blocks of user interface design. This is a hands-on course and is most effective for delegates who have day-to-day responsibility for designing user interfaces within their organisation. Delegates are encouraged to bring existing design problems along to the seminar so that we can solve them on the day (in this way the seminar acts like a 1-day hothouse for design ideas). The course will also be valuable for project managers who want to understand design principles or who want to see examples of early design deliverables. Note: you will be doing a lot of sketching on this course but you do not need to be able to draw.

You will learn how to

• Articulate the differences between divergent and convergent thinking, and when to apply them.
• Feel comfortable sketching out design ideas for user interfaces.
• Generate dozens of ideas to user interface design problems, using techniques like cherry split, slice and dice, suggestion box, random word, method cards, and inspiration libraries.
• Use storyboarding to involve users in co-creation workshops.
• Use the 'design the box' activity to help stakeholders from development, business analysis, customer propositions and other business units articulate the core principles of what is important in the design.
• Articulate these principles in terms of a user experience vision that will help refine your design ideas and drive development for years to come.

Seminar content

Introduction – What is design thinking?

• Iterative design and modern software development.
• Convergent and divergent thinking: both have their place.
• Syndicate activity: Where do design blocks come from?
• Simple tricks to make your sketches look good.

From one design solution to dozens

• The Cherry Split and how to use it.
• Getting ideas by slicing and dicing the context of use.
• How to use the Suggestion Box to explore the design space.
• Random words for further idea generation.
• Pushing further with method cards, design principles and inspiration libraries.
• Syndicate activity: Design a dozen solutions to an existing design problem.

Opening up the design to more ideas

• How to create and use storyboards.
• Syndicate activity: Storyboard your design solutions.

From divergence to convergence

• Involving stakeholders: the 'design the box' activity.
• Syndicate activity: Design the box.
• Generating design principles to live by.
• Developing a user experience vision for your product.
• Refining the final design idea.

Summary and Wrap-Up

• Brief review of the key topics.
• Final opportunity for questions.

What delegates say about this seminar

• “Excellent — very pleased!” – Andy Duke, First Direct.
• “I now feel more confident in my sketching abilities and in describing myself as a ‘designer’.”
• “Really good content… Good techniques to generate new ideas.”
• “Because I don't have a design background, I wasn't sure what to expect. I really enjoyed it, it has definitely improved my confidence.”
• “It has got me thinking differently. Proves brainstroming by sketching all ideas down is a creative, practical approach.”
• “Made me feel more creative.”

What do I get when I book this course?

• 1 day design studio workshop with a usability expert.
• Practical checklists, worksheets and extensive notes to take home.
• A proper, air-conditioned learning environment.
• CPD-approved course attendance certificate.
• A 2-course lunch and refreshments throughout the day.
• A money-back guarantee.

More details on what you get.

Duration

This course lasts one day.