oBJECTIVE

Giving a practical and simple introduction to User Experience to audience.
Students will learn UX design process by participating in a design challenge.

PARTICIPANTS

34 college students (divided into 5 groups)
2 mentors: Jack Yang & Cheng Hua Yang
1 facilitator: Shuo-Cheng Sun
1 assistant: I-Jan Wang
2 professors: Dr. Chu & Dr. Hsu

Role

Organizer/Facilitator/Mentor

Motivation

Inspired by Hacktathon and Designathon that I’ve attended in the States, I'm eager to introduce UX basic concept to Taiwan’s academic environment and give back to the community where I was raised up.

I. Planning THE WORKSHOP

Define the Goal & Create an Agenda

First of all, I had to understand my goal for this workshop. Because it would the first UX workshop at NTHU, the main purpose was to generate an awareness of what UX is and spark people’ interests.

Then, I started to draft the agenda and came up with the design challenge: "College students have difficulties to Book Movie Tickets Online." Which was a good design challenge because it was inspiring, short and specifies the target use groups that students can relate to their personal experiences and play around with it.

Prepare the Supplies & Build a positive environment

There would be 34 participants so I divided them into 5 teams (6,7,7,7,7)

Each team would need:

Sticky Notes * 3 packs
Sharpies * 3
A1 Papers * 6 (warm-up*1, customer journey*1, brainstorming*1 and prototype*3)
A4 Papers * 25 (for sketch)
Tape*1

Total Cost is around $30.

II. during the workshop

It was a 3-hour event composed of 3 main parts: Introduction, UX Process, and Conclusion. Also, time management played an important role in running a good workshop. I scheduled times and had a timer with me to make sure every part was done on time.

Introduction

To make the audience feel comfortable and interested, I started with a Icebreaker game which could also let them get to know their teammates. Then, I gave a brief introduction of myself and my awesome mentors. To help audience get a better understanding of what UX is, I used real world examples which provided a context-rich opportunity for students to learn. In the end of introduction section,
I designed a warm-up activity that let them practice to use sticky notes: Draw the process of Cooking an egg. It helped students understand the advantages of Post-it notes compared to traditional note-taking.

Sticky notes are awesome tools for innovation and collaboration

UX Process

Here’s the sweet part! From my point of view, UX is a problem-solving process. To understand UX, get your hands dirty!
Therefore, I designed a challenge for participants: College students have difficulties to Book Movie Tickets Online. It was important to have a specific topic which was also related to their experiences.

Then, I guided them to go through a brief UX process:

Identify target audience
Define user needs/wants
Create a customer journey map
Brainstorm ideas with sharpies & sticky notes
Sketch and prototype on paper

For each stages, I explained the terms first, then they discussed with other team members.

Pitch & Conclusion

After going through the UX process, finally we came to the most exciting part: Pitch. To my surprise, they were way more better than I’d expected. It was inspiring to see students’ excellent execution and amazing creativity. To align my goal of this workshop: ignite their interests, providing positive feedback was essential for a meaningful learning experience. Be sincere and specific that students could know what was good and appreciate their teamwork. It was about taking the opportunity to express appreciation of a job well done, in the hope of inspiring an individual for further learning.

Overall, it was an wonderful experience. Everyone enjoyed the 3-hour event and meet new friends. Wasn't it amazing? Not only did I introduce UX to Taiwan, but also I realized one of my dreams: being an UX INSPIRATOR! At last, I wanted to thanks my awesome partners/friends who were guided and encouraged students.