https://www.tjsanders.design/blog daily 0.75 2025-02-14 https://www.tjsanders.design/blog/blog-post-title-one-b7esm monthly 0.5 2025-02-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67ae05bfc4443468427cec3c/675b36cf-69be-4679-bca3-91b803026660/Solutions+AntiSolutions.png Blog - 5 Virtual UX Workshops for User-Centric Decision Making - Solutions & Anti-solutions Start by deciding which user you want to discuss, and what major challenge you can help them solve. These should come up pretty naturally in the other workshops, but if you’re stuck, ask your team “out of all our user’s challenges, which are in our control to help them with?” If there are multiple, there’s nothing wrong with doing this workshop multiple times! Now’s where the real workshop begins. The task for everyone is to enter solutions (or anti-solutions) into sticky notes and place them on the board. An anti-solution is anything that would actively go against helping your user achieve their goal. While solutions are more valuable, it can be difficult to solve a problem with a blank canvas. It’s often easier to come up with tactics that won’t solve the problem. Then your team has somewhere to start. This is a workshop your team can complete all at once - no need to start with anti-solutions and then move to solutions. I like to set a timer for around 5 minutes, and then take 5 to 10 minutes to discuss common solutions with the team. Consider respectfully poking holes in solutions as well. There’s nothing wrong with bringing up potential roadblocks - so long as you approach the roadblocks with the goal of overcoming them. ✨ Pro Tip: It can be difficult to poke holes without being discouraging. My best advice is to slow down and reiterate what’s good about the idea before bringing up your concern in the form of a question. Consider saying something like “I love that [the solution] would solve [user’s problem]. I’m wondering if we need to think about the amount of time it’d take to accomplish this. What do you all think?” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67ae05bfc4443468427cec3c/71a2a7a0-a6ab-4e79-84b7-b676ea1ae18a/Persona+Exploration.png Blog - 5 Virtual UX Workshops for User-Centric Decision Making - Persona Exploration Before starting this exercise, prepare participants for what to expect. Tell them, as a team, you’re going to go through four main topics, one by one, and discuss each individually. Personally, I prefer to lead users in a specific order: (1) persona (demographics/personality), (2) what they’re trying to achieve, (3) pain points, and finally (4) motivations. This allows participants to move from something physical and tangible (e.g. gender, family make up, job description) to something more abstract (e.g. emotional state, fears, goals). Set a timer and let everyone start dragging sticky notes to the board and enter information. I like to start with 3 minutes for each block. If you find that people are still pretty active at the end, you can always extend the length (and vice versa). Then, chat! Call out trends you’re noticing. Call out questions you have. Bring up items that contradict one another. I’d set a timer for these too (5 minutes is usually good), as it’s easy to lose track of time here! I’d also recommend having someone on your team in the background adding notes as you keep participants engaged. ✨ Pro Tip: During the pain points/motivators, it’s common for participants to focus only on what pain point their product or service alleviates. This is useful, but it can be valuable to encourage participants to think about other pain points. Are they a parent working all day before ushering grade school kids around to activities all evening? Are they in a highly stressful and competitive industry? These items may not result in specific solutions, but they can help you understand how the product fits into the user’s life and how small design decisions can really help them out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67ae05bfc4443468427cec3c/5a2c68b8-5982-46a7-8c42-7c01017bf04d/Persona+Brainstorm.png Blog - 5 Virtual UX Workshops for User-Centric Decision Making - User Brainstorm Session Start simple! When there’s a question as vague as “who are our audiences?,” there can be a LOT of answers. So, get them all on paper. Set a timer for a couple minutes (I usually start with 5 minutes). Ask your team to write all their thoughts down on sticky notes and place them on the board. If participants begin to slow down, you can always end the timer early. Next, have the group organize the sticky notes to better define these groups. This’ll allow you all to see where the team seems to agree or disagree. Then start talkin’! It’s important for the entire team to know who you’re trying to reach. So start sharing what you’re noticing. Start asking questions. Work with the team to get aligned and figure out who your most important audiences are. ✨ Pro Tip: As participants are writing their thoughts, take notes on questions that pop into your head. What audiences seem to come up a lot? What audiences appear to be outliers? What audiences seem to be contradictory? These simple questions can be a goldmine of information (or a can of worms you want to address early)! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67ae05bfc4443468427cec3c/5babbfb6-1a81-444e-a69d-060802530f1f/Empathy+Mapping.png Blog - 5 Virtual UX Workshops for User-Centric Decision Making - Empathy Mapping Empathy Mapping involves moving through four quadrants for each persona - all of which come together to thoroughly understand your users on a fundamental level. The four quadrants are: Thinks & Feels - Values, motivators, fears, feelings Sees - Environment, marketplace, competition Say and Do - Quotes, actions Hear - Opinions, external influences, media channels You can move through these in any order - or if you’ve already done a persona exploration exercise, you can do them all at once! Just make sure you give your team enough time to complete the activity. I like to do 2 minutes of time per quadrant, or 6 minutes for all of it. Of course, your group may need more or less time - never be afraid to pivot accordingly. Like other workshops, you’ll see trends pop out, but I would recommend really focusing on the contradictions. Do their actions go against their own motivations? Do they hear things that go against their fears? These contradictions can all exist at once, and when examined can provide some deep fundamental truths about your users. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67ae05bfc4443468427cec3c/aa44605a-7c88-4b53-aeef-76d27b76c441/Tweet+Writing.png Blog - 5 Virtual UX Workshops for User-Centric Decision Making - Tweet Writing Despite the myriad of opinions about X (formerly known as Twitter), it is a great way to quickly and succinctly (or sometimes not so succinctly) get someone’s opinion on things. This activity is a bit of role play. Invite your participants to take a moment to imagine that they are a member of the primary audience. Envision that the new digital experience is live, they’re using it, and they love it. Set a timer for a few minutes (2 minutes is typically enough). Then ask your participants to write a tweet about it! At the end of the two minutes, ask everyone to read through the tweets. Invite participants to comment on items they like (or even disagree with!). ✨ Pro Tip: Many virtual workshop platforms (such as Miro) have built in voting capabilities. If you’re crunched for time, set up some quick dot voting that allows users to place 3 dots on their favorite answers. Then, just discuss the items that got the most votes! Note that people may sometimes have a hard time getting into the mindset. If this is the case, it can help to invite participants to close their eyes for a few minutes beforehand and ask some thought starter questions. “You’re using the new website. What do you think? What really makes your life easier? What’s memorable to you?” Another thing - you can (and should!) participate in this exercise too! Throw some emojis in there. Tag another user. Use some hashtags. By participating yourself, you set the tone for participants to let their guard down and play. Even if you don’t know the audience very well, what’s important is the vulnerability. Let yourself get it wrong. Ask participants to help you learn. 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