The Zombie Apocalypse Workshop
Designing a UX Workshop Based on Creating Features for a Zombie Survival App
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Problem
Brainstorming is a method that's often used to generate ideas, and it can be particularly useful among UX teams. However, this method has drawbacks that discourage a truly open environment. For example, introverts tend to be overshadowed in large group forums, and often times, the first idea mentioned will influence the ideas that follow. I needed to design a brainstorming workshop that would encouragesall members to contribute ideas without being unduly influenced by others.
The Solution
A fun and engaging workshop aimed at creating an app that would help people survive a zombie apocalypse. The aim was to come up with features for the app using different brainstorming techniques, such as braindumping and brainwalking, which would allow all participants to offer ideas in a manner that would be comfortable for everyone.
The Tools
Markers, Post-It notes, Flip Chart Paper, Tape, and PowerPoint
My Role
Workshop Creator and Facilitator
RESEARCH
Topic
One of the first challenges I faced was to find a topic that would fire up everyone's imagination. I wanted it to be fun, but with an element of urgency that would motivate participants. I thought the topic of a zombie apocalypse, while fictional, might be interesting and relevant in the face of real-life predictions of future epidemics. Knowing that the group would be made up of UX students, I decided to focus on the idea of creating an app that would allow people to survive a zombie apocalypse.
Once I had a topic, I looked up different methods of brainstorming to see if I could come up with a some ideas that would encourage maximum participation among workshop attendees. Knowing that some of them may be reluctant to speak up in a large group, I looked for ways that would break up the group into smaller units and encourage each member to put forth ideas. That's when I stumbled onto braindumping, brainwriting, and brainwalking.
(By this point, I realized the irony of combining "brain"-work and zombies.)
Organization
Now that I had my topic and a purpose, I began to organize the workshop. I broke it down into five areas: the introduction, the aim, the scenario, the task, and the wrap up.
The more I thought about the task, however, the more I realized I wanted participants to be able to refine the ideas from the brainstorming into something more useful. To do this, I added a second part to the task which was to map out the features based on criteria such as "most time-consuming" and "most costly" in order to assign a value to each feature.
Visual Presentation
After deciding how to organize the workshop in a way that would make the most sense to participants, I set to work on designing a PowerPoint presentation.
This is where I had a bit of fun imagining what the participants would need to know in order to complete the task. This included slides on zombie characteristics and rough profiles of the survivors/users.
Prepping
The next stage after creating a presentation was to prepare all the materials that the participants would need. I was given one hour to hold the workshop, and I didn't want to waste any of that time.
I distributed Post-It notes and markers. I drew feature map grids and stuck them up throughout the room where I would assign each group to work. I also made sure to have handouts with information from my PowerPoint presentation so that participants could reference that in order to do the task.
FINAL OUTCOME
Workshop Toolkit
After I ran the workshop, I created a toolkit that participants could use to run their own sessions. The toolkit included a full description of the workshop and its purpose, the materials needed, and the desired outcomes.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Participants seemed to really enjoy the workshop. The feedback I got was that it was enjoyable, different, and most importantly, useful. But I almost felt it was too successful because during the first task of coming up with features, the number of different ideas generated far exceeded the number I expected. When I glanced at some of the group lists, I saw full pages of notes which was great, however, it took quite awhile to go through each group's ideas.
In retrospect, I think it would've been better if I had asked each group to share their top 3 or top 5 ideas and gone around the room that way. This would give each group an opportunity to present their best ideas without feeling rushed.
Overall, it was a great learning experience leading this exercise because of the opportunity it gave me to plan, execute, observe, and adapt a workshop strategy to fit the needs of the "users," in this case, the workshop participants.