Our Workshops
Our core service is UX and UI design. To ensure we deliver not only the best designs, but also the best possible results, we begin by running workshops. In this article, I’m going to talk you through how we deliver great Product Workshops at UserActive.
Why are Product Workshops so Important?
First of all, the reason we run product workshops is to help set our design sprints up for success. We do that by establishing desired outcomes from the start. Our design work is always aligned with business objectives for product companies. This usually includes a goal around scaling the business or improving a product metric such as acquisition, utilisation, retention. Getting clear on our desired objectives enables us to make sure that we create impactful designs that achieve them.
For example, a company we recently worked with wanted to scale but there was some onboarding friction in the product. We realised that to help them scale, we needed to make the product entirely self-service. We came out of the workshop with the desired outcome to convert the product into a self-service SaaS that would enable them to scale 1,000 self-service users in 90 days. This desired outcome provided the focus for all our design work.
Although most of our clients are SaaS, we find that the requirements of each client are different based on their unique circumstances. So while we have a set agenda for our workshop sessions we allow for the scope to tailor our sessions to each customer’s requirement. We find that 2x 2hr sessions are usually a perfect amount of time. For those meetings, we tend to use Zoom, Miro, Whimsical and google docs for these sessions. We share links to any software or canvas so they can take a look and prep before each Workshop session.
What Should You Expect From the Process?
First, we begin with a preliminary call. On this call, we define the problem we are trying to solve. We set our areas to focus on and our priorities for the workshop. We set the scene and schedule the sessions.
During the first session, we tend to spend some time understanding your product, ICP and route to market. Then we jump into the product using screen share to take a look at key areas of opportunity for big improvements. We consult, discuss and record ideas around how we would tackle key issues and how we would measure success. The process is collaborative and we discuss ideas as a team until we agree on a plan of action.
For the second session, we prepare an agenda that enables us to start thinking in more detail about solving the problems we identified. This might include sharing some wireframe sketches or working on outline scope requirements. The second session provides momentum towards addressing the problems and achieving the desired outcomes.
Finally, we wrap up the second session with a follow-up call where we hold a retrospective to discuss how the workshop went and the next steps. The deliverables that we provide on this closing call are the workshop notes, brief, scope and specification documents and a proposal for our design sprint.
Conclusion
That is how we run Product Workshops at UserActive. We’ve delivered this workshop many times over so we’ve been able to refine the experience to make it as best as it can be. Our customers provide great feedback on this workshop. They often say that they end up with a much clearer vision of what they need to achieve and also some key realisations that will help move their product and business forward.
If you’d like to hire us for a Workshop just get in touch via our website at useractive.io or by clicking here. If if you’re watching this because you’ve already booked, thank you! We’re looking forward to helping you improve your product, get more users and grow.
