Collaborative Design with Users

Want to build more engaging, impactful, and equitable assessments? Here's why co-creating 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 users is advantageous: ▶️ 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲: When those who will be assessed are involved in the design process, the resulting assessments are more likely to align with real-world needs and objectives. This ensures that the assessments are meaningful and relevant to the evaluated individuals. ▶️ 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝗶𝗮𝘀: Co-creation fosters diverse perspectives, helping to identify and mitigate potential biases that might unintentionally disadvantage certain groups. ▶️ 𝗘𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: When individuals feel a sense of ownership over the assessment process, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated to participate. This can lead to increased buy-in and a greater sense of purpose in the assessment process. ▶️ 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀: Co-created assessments often yield more actionable data. By involving stakeholders in the design process, you can ensure that the data collected can be used effectively to inform improvements in decision-making. By embracing co-creation, we can move beyond traditional, top-down assessments and build more effective, equitable, and meaningful evaluation experiences. For a great application highlighting the benefits of co-designing a survey with Parkinson's patients, check out this paper by Thomas Morel, Karlin Schroeder, Sophie Cleanthous, PhD, CPsychol, Geraldine Blavat, and colleagues: https://lnkd.in/gug3q-jv ---- Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Center for Measurement Justice.

🎡 How To Run UX Workshops With Users (Scripts + Templates) (https://lnkd.in/evqDZSFe), a helpful overview of practical techniques to turn a verbal-only interview into a collaborative UX workshop — with sticky note mapping, solution drag’n’drop and voting. Put together by Laura Eiche-Laane. 👏🏽 🤔 Users and designers often a speak a different language. ✅ Insights are clearer when you see users performing tasks. ✅ Switch question-answer sections with small visual tasks. ✅ Sticky note mapping: for user flows, journeys, org maps. ✅ Card sorting: organize data, filters, menu items into groups. ✅ Feature location: ask users where they’d expect a new feature. ✅ Drag’n’drop: ask users to design their own UI or page layout. ✅ Solution voting: get feedback on many design directions. ✅ When explaining a task, show what you’d like them to do. ✅ Track where users are undecided, and follow up in a debrief. When I jump in a new project, I like to run walkthroughs with actual users as a way to understand the domain and the product. I simply ask them what the product does and how it helps them in their daily work. And then I invite them to show and explain it to me. I ask them to show how it works, the features they use, the quirks they’ve discovered and the shortcuts and loopholes they rely on daily. Perhaps there is something where the product fails on them, or something they wish was better, or something that is too fragile, confusing, complex or irrelevant. That’s when insights emerge, and that’s when you might notice that the things said and the things done are not necessarily the same thing. Of course users sometimes exaggerate their struggles, but they rarely complain lividly about something that isn’t really an issue for them. 🗃️ Useful resources: How And Why To Include Users In UX Workshops, by Maddie Brown https://lnkd.in/eKdd5GXp UX Workshop Activities With Users, by Jonathon Juvenal https://lnkd.in/eJjpcibR Remote UX Workshop Activities, by Jordan Bowman https://lnkd.in/e8wSMVwC Usability Testing Templates (Scripts), by Slava Shestopalov https://lnkd.in/gZyBtK6u UX Workshop Scripts + Templates https://theuxcookbook.com UX Research Templates, by Odette Jansen https://lnkd.in/eqpXyGHH --- 🧲 Miro and Notion templates: UX Research Templates (Miro), by ServiceNow https://lnkd.in/e48nKzKA Miro Templates For Designers https://lnkd.in/e8Hkp-ws Notion Templates For Designers https://lnkd.in/en_VBc6r #ux #design

Product designers get trapped. Requirements into blueprints. Over and over again. It's not what the role was meant to be. And they know it. But it's hard to escape once you start. It becomes what's expected from you. Your value gets measured by how fast you deliver designs to developers. I want to help you deliver knowledge and insights, not just designs. By doing so you broaden your role and increase your opportunities for growth. Here’s how to get started: Steal my framework to capture the context, constraints, and opportunities surrounding a product problem before exploring solutions. It helps ensure that your design work solves the right problem in a way that aligns with user needs and business strategy. 1. Problem definition ----- What are we solving? Frame it from the user’s point of view. Template: [User] is struggling with [specific obstacle], which causes [negative impact] or: [User type] can’t [achieve goal] because [problem or barrier] 2. Who has this problem? ----- Who are the affected users? Include real user types, segments, or roles. Add context like behaviours, goals, and environment. 3. What’s the business opportunity or risk? ----- Why does this matter? What outcome could be unlocked, or what risk avoided, if we solve this? 4. How do we know it’s real? ----- What evidence supports this problem? Use both qualitative (e.g. interviews, support chats) and quantitative (e.g. dashboards, funnels) sources. 5. What’s been tried already? ----- Partial solutions, past efforts, workarounds. What didn’t work, and why? 6. How do competitors solve this? ----- What ideas can we borrow, adapt, or avoid? 7. What assumptions do we have? ----- What are we assuming about: • Why this is happening • What users want • What they’ll do if we solve it • What solution might be needed 8. Desired outcomes ----- What behaviour change are we aiming for? Template: If we solve [problem], users will [behaviour], resulting in [product or business metric]. 9. How might we solve the problem? ----- Early ideas, loosely held. Tie each idea back to a problem from the first question. 10. Hypotheses ----- Two kinds of hypotheses: Discovery hypotheses (ship to learn): • We believe [problem or assumption] is true. We can validate this by [method]. We’ll gain confidence if we observe [signal]. Delivery hypotheses (ship for impact): • We believe [solution] will lead to [user behaviour], which will drive [business outcome]. We’ll know we’re right when [measurable signal]. Tips ----- ↳ Encourage your team to use this collaboratively. ↳ Not everything needs to be filled in upfront. It's a gradual process. ↳ Add links to relevant docs, data, or research as you go. ----- If you want to shift from pixel delivery to strategic partner, here's 15% off my next cohort: https://lnkd.in/dZd8aKzm

The 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 (𝐏𝐑𝐨𝐅) teaching case shows how a large healthcare consortium and a small group of manufacturers collaborated to rethink innovation in a highly regulated sector. At its core, the case demonstrates how PRoF turned the interaction between two very different communities into its main innovation engine. The large consortium represents the healthcare user community: nurses, doctors, caregivers, patients, and hospital managers who express the lived reality of care. Their contribution is experiential and value-based. Through structured “brainwave sessions,” they surface latent needs and convert them into broad keywords such as comfort, privacy, dignity, or anti-loneliness. These keywords form a shared language that avoids technical jargon and allows hundreds of users with diverse perspectives to converge around common priorities. The small consortium consists of manufacturers, architects, and designers who have the capabilities to transform these user insights into concrete room concepts. Their commercial goals are kept strictly outside the creative process, allowing trust to grow between the groups. Once the user community defines the keywords, the producer community develops prototypes, after which the large consortium returns to evaluate and refine them. This modular sequencing keeps tensions low, ensures rapid progress, and prevents commercial logic from dominating user needs. The interaction between these two communities solves a longstanding problem in healthcare innovation: suppliers often misunderstand user needs, while users lack the means to innovate. PRoF bridges this gap by letting users drive ideation and letting producers translate that insight into solutions. What emerges is a genuinely user-oriented innovation ecosystem in which neither community could succeed alone, but together they generate concepts that reshape expectations of care design. You can find the case study at HBSP: https://lnkd.in/e6nxTFM7 #UserCentricInnovation #Collaboration #OpenInnovation #CrossCommunityCollaboration #HealthcareEcosystems #CoCreation #Ideation

Design with the people, not for the people! The best products aren’t created in isolation. Instead, they’re built in collaboration with the people who use them. What does that actually mean? It means you should embed user research into your design process: • Talk to your users to understand their needs, frustrations, and goals. • Observe them in context to uncover insights they might not articulate. • Engage with them early and often to validate ideas and refine solutions. When we do this, we design solutions for real problems, not just the ones we assume users have. User research is often seen as a bottleneck and a luxury. However, it’s the foundation of great design. How do you involve users in your design process? Let’s discuss!

Want to know what separates good design from great design? It’s not just creativity—it’s real user feedback. The best UX isn’t based on assumptions but on listening, observing, and iterating. Here’s how to design with users at the center 👇 1️⃣ Listen to Real Users 🔹 Talk to actual users—not just stakeholders. → Conduct interviews, surveys, and usability tests. → Dig into support tickets & reviews—real frustrations live there 🔹 Watch how people interact with your product. → Run usability tests. → Identify friction points. → Note patterns in behavior. 2️⃣ Observe & Analyze 🔹 Data > Gut Feelings. → Use heatmaps, session recordings, and analytics. → Look for drop-off points and confusion areas. 🔹Ask “why” behind user actions. → What’s causing hesitation? → Where do they struggle? → What do they expect? 3️⃣ Iterate & Improve 🔹 UX is never "done." → Test changes in small steps. → Refine based on results, not opinions. 🔹 Make data-driven design decisions. → Iterate, test, refine—repeat. 🪄 The Key? Let Users Be Your Roadmap. Your job isn’t just to design—it’s to solve real problems. Listen, observe, and keep improving. That’s how great UX is built. For next, Join my journey, Subash Chandra for digital footprints with growth focused user centric digital solutions by UI and UX.