At Agile UX NYC in the spring I was really inspired by a talk by Todd Zaki Warfel on the Design Studio method of ideation. So I decided to try it with my team, and had great results. We generated 20 ideas in 2 hours, one of which became the final design. Folks came up to me afterwards to tell me how much they enjoyed the process. So here’s my notes so you can try it:

Agenda for design studio workshop (ask folks to bring design inspiration print-outs to meeting):

* Ideation
* Pitch Ideas
* Structured Critique
* Rapid Iteration

Design Studio workshop method notes

By Todd Zaki Warfel, principal designer, messagefirst
@zakiwarfel
Design Studio
Create. Pitch. Critique.
(technically this is called a charrette)

1. Create a wall (he uses butcher paper taped up with that blue construction tape). Tape up inspiration (designs we like, competitive apps we like — strategist could perhaps help there). Work from left to right — most final designs on right.
2. Account starts off by describing the scenario of the assignment (a quick summary of the brief)
3. Give each person sharpies and a 6-up notepad with a grid system (we can just use a regular notepad though). Tell them they have 5 minutes to sketch 6 to 8 designs (don’t tell them this in advance). The time starts now!
4. Then break everyone up into teams of 3. The teams nominate someone to pitch their design.
5. Give a 3 minute pitch on how your concept solved the problem: lay out the scenario, describe goals of the design, how my design addressed the goals.
6. Everyone in the room then has 3 minutes to critique the person’s design. The person who pitched cannot speak. The people critiquing must say 2 to 3 ways it solves the problem and one to two opportunities to improve. In green marker mark what really worked and red marker what needs improvement. You can’t talk about what you personally liked or didn’t like, must talk about how the design solved the problem.
7. Iterate as a team based on the critique.

Todd’s team generated 420 concepts in one day!

This is the second post in my “A Case of You” series, next up – Prototyping!