Up until recently I was a little nervous to bring the design studio workshop method I was practicing at work internally to my clients. Luckily I had the advantage of attending Greg Schuler’s workshop at Interaction 13 “Harness the Brainpower: Clients and Stakeholders”. More than anything the workshop gave me the confidence to give this a try with clients even in Pharmaceuticals, a tightly regulated industry.

What I’ve found is that it’s been highly successful so far, allowing us to gain greater insight into what our clients are thinking and their deep knowledge base. Also the process runs much more smoothly because they were part of the development from the beginning. I think they really have a lot of fun with the sketching part as well.

This week I printed out iPad templates for my clients / stakeholders to use and brought the leftovers home. My 5 year old and his brothers sketched on them, designing their own iPad apps as well as icons for them. I was trying to teach my oldest how to storyboard a bit. I kept asking him so what happens after that? It’s a skill lots in my field can really develop, thinking through every nuance of the interaction design. The templates help ground the design and were nearly the same dimensions as the real screen. For responsive workshops I’d like to print out 3 key form factors. It is probably the most fun part of the day for the kid within an adult 9 to 5 -er.