INTERACT – Workshop 2017

There are numerous research methodologies which designers resort to, in the Discovery/Research phase of design. In this phase, a UX designer acquires a plethora of insights from users, their surroundings, the stakeholders. But the million dollar question is how many of these insights get translated into actual designs?While the designer tries to assimilate these insights, there is no framework to define these insights into design goals, categorise them, prioritise them and use them as a guideline to render them into designs.

This workshop will enable participants to learn this unique and interactive way of conducting research, gathering insights and converting them into metrics / attributes . These attributes can then be prioritized and used while designing or conducting usability testing. These attributes will not just help designers but will also serve as guidelines for BAs, developers, testers and whoever else that is involved in the project. The success of the project / interface can be easily evaluated using these desired attributes/metrics.

In this workshop the participants will be actively involved in conducting the research, coming up with the attributes, prioritizing it, applying it in the design, testing the design and witnessing the usability impact.

Target Audience:
Practicing Designers, UX consultants, Business Analysts, UX Students, Faculty, Product /service developers, product/service managers.

This highly interactive workshop will be conducted in 2 phases

Phase 1:
The participating cohort will be divided into six/seven groups of four/five, depending upon the number of participants. Each group will be assigned an artefact or a system that they will have to evaluate critically. To facilitate the critical valuation, structured brainstorming/discussion within each group will be conducted. Each brainstorming module will last for ten minutes. Three such brainstorming modules will be conducted, in which the group members will discuss and list out the following three aspects about the allocated artefact/system, respectively:
1. All the positive (interaction) aspects of the artefact/system assigned.
2. All the negative (interaction) aspects of the artefact/system assigned.
3. All the aspirations about the artefact/system assigned, i.e. what they wish the artefact/system could have had.
This will be followed by an open forum, where each group will share their lists. Thus a list of desirable and undesirable attributes of a product/interaction system will emerge, after a healthy discussion within the cohort. Each of the attributes will be discussed thoroughly for detailed clarifications.

Once a comprehensive list of attributes is created, they will be asked to conduct a ratings exercise to rate the importance of the attributes and prioritise them to form a checklist with ratings.

Outcome of Phase 1:
A comprehensive list of attributes will be unfolded and along with the ratings, a framework will emerge which can be used as guideline for not only the design and usability testing phase but also all the development and maintenance phases of any workflow/service. A research paper published by me on a similar exercise for New Product Development can be accessed at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13731-016-0055-7 as a ready reference. ( will not be included/referred during the course of workshop)

Phase 2:
Once we have the framework from phase 1 we will ask the participants to put it in use.
As the above framework will be a co-evolved (by the entire cohort) one, it will have a strong ownership quotient. Participants will then enhance the design/experience for an assigned workflow/service using this framework as guideline. After the exercise is complete the group will also evaluate their new design /framework by following the framework.

Outcome of Phase 2:
Each group will present their ideas adhering to the framework. A before and after format(videos/ posters) will be used to demonstrate the upgraded versions of the workflow/service. The participants will witness that all the insights would have been taken into consideration in their new design/service and are ready to be rolled out confidently.

Duration:
Phase 1 – One and half hour
Phase 2 – Four hours

The participants are requested to submit a graphic rich case study /posters/ professional experience document/presentation of a client for whom a user research activity was conducted. Please note : We do not need client names, you can mask them.The submission should highlight :

• Client brief
• Target users and stakeholders
• Design problem
• The user research objective
• User research processes/activities/approach
• The insight obtained
• The suggested designs

Invited experts will review the submissions and intimate changes/acceptance / provisional acceptance to the participants by the given date. The accepted entries would need to be modified, if needed to reflect the review comments. Selected submissions, along with the suggested reading material will be circulated to all participants for prior reading Before the workshop.

• May 14, 2017: Submission deadline for participation entry
• Interim Period for review of registrations
• Jun 4, 2017: Notification of final workshop participants list
• June 3rd week, 2017: Camera-ready posters/case studies

Entries should be sent to: hello@potentialsandpossibilities.com
With subject : Interact 2017 workshop participation

* Please refer to INTERACT’17 Site (https://www.interact2017.org/workshops) for updates / change in dates. The dates published by the conference organisers are to be adhered to. Similarly, please adhere to the format specified by the conference publishers for inclusion in the conference adjunct proceedings. Publication related matters are handled by the conference organisers. Queries, if any, should be addressed to the workshop chairs (workshops@interact2017.org)