UX Workshops

Collection of workshops used to solve problems in the company. Teamwork to go further.
Wagner Germany da Silveira
Feb, 2024
-
3 to 5
min read per case

⚡#1 - Problem Prioritization: Lightning Decision Jam

⏱️ 2 min
⚠️Problem: Difficulty in unifying and prioritizing problems related to usability on the platform. This problem had been raised at the annual meeting.
🎯Goal: Organize a multidisciplinary team, identify and prioritize problems to be addressed.
🎁Output: Prioritized list of issues to be solved.
⏰Duration: One morning (2-3 hours).
🕹️Skills used: Workshop Facilitation and UX Design.

Context

After being commented about usability problems in the company, I had the idea of organizing a workshop for this subject. The focus was to discover the main problems of the moment, to quickly generate ideas and to put them in place according to their impact-effort.

To have a complete view, we selected people from different backgrounds to avoid a biased approach. There were 5 people in total: UX Designer (Me), CEO, CTO, Back-end Developer and Business Developer/Marketing.

We used the method called Lightning Decision Jam, which consists of 4 steps to make quick and effective decisions. Below is a summary of the steps that were worked on:

1) Discovery (Boat dynamic)

This short exercise was used to highlight some positive points that were implemented before. But mainly to list all the problems that are preventing us from achieving the goal of improving UX. Each of the participants had votes to distribute on the most relevant problems. The ones with the most votes would be taken to the next step.

2) Ideation

Then each of the problems was turned into an open-ended question (how might we...) and ideas were generated from each question for the 4 main problems. The voting system was also applied to select the best ideas.

3) Prioritization

Based on the most voted ideas, and with the help of Figma, each participant classified the ideas on an effort-impact scale. Reaching the result of 4 ideas in the square to implement quickly and 3 ideas to implement later (in project form).

4) Implementation

To have better control and organization, we created a list with the steps to be taken and deadlines for each issue prioritized. For security/privacy reasons, some information was removed/blurred. Yet, this does not affect the understanding of the method used.

Next Steps

  • Check if the deadlines are well defined.
  • Discuss about some solutions in a deeper way.
  • Implement the solutions prioritized on the list.
  • Identify the need of similar workshops in the future.

🗃️#2 - Reorganizing the hierarchy with Card Sorting: New global Menu

⏱️ 3 min
⚠️Problem: Too many modules in the same menu section.
🎯Goal: Rearrange all software modules in a logical manner.
🎁Output: New global menu.
⏰Duration: 2 weeks.
🕹️Skills used: Workshop Facilitation and UX Design.

Context

Over the years, the company maintained the same structure chosen for the global menu, adding new modules in the categories that seemed “as close as possible”.

However, during the software expansion, several modules were added without deep reflection, causing cognitive/visual overload, in addition to not having a classification logic.

To solve this problem, the idea was to develop a card sorting exercise to obtain feedback from the company's customers and thus reorganize the modules according to the users' needs.

1) Methodology

The Figjam platform was chosen for its practicality and because users were already familiar with other tests previously performed on it. The type of card sorting used was semi-structured, meaning that some reminders were provided about the old categories, but users could modify them or add new ones if they felt it necessary.

Previously, there were 20 modules in the company divided into 3 categories. The image below shows how the template was organized before being sent to customers:

After creating the template, invitations were sent to different profiles of all client companies. Users had to drag and group the modules within the categories, and then choose which name would be most ideal for each category.

2) Data analysis

The goal was to get around 15 users to participate. That was the result achieved.

To analyze the data obtained, two strategies were used to obtain concrete results: Standardization Grid and Similarity Matrix. These approaches allowed us to identify patterns and groups according to the organization of each new category, which fit into the old ones and which needed a new one. Both tables can be viewed below:

Finally, a qualitative analysis was carried out regarding the names/labels of each group, identifying which formed patterns and which were the most appropriate according to our clients.

3) Implementation

After a meeting with the team members, some final details were adjusted and a prototype was generated to visualize what the final result would look like with all the proposed modifications.

Following the decision made, the modification was added to the development backlog and implemented in the new version of the software.

Next Steps

  • In addition to better organized categories, the next step is to create subsections as new modules are added to the same category. This will segment the menu in an easier way for users to scan more naturally and quickly.
  • Whenever a new module is created, consideration will be given to identifying the most appropriate category and, if necessary, collecting data from users.
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