Workshops | Mentoring | Training
Public speaking | Event planning
I led Nomensa's first all day graduate workshop with over 30 recent graduates looking to enter the exciting world of UX. The workshop was an opportunity for graduates to learn about UX, and hear what it's like working in a UX agency, and collaborate on activities such as persona creation and journey mapping.
What the day looked like
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The workshop was focused on introducing prospective UXers to the world of UX, discussing what it's like to work as a UX researcher or designer, and demystifying the responsibilities of a UXer, and answering questions about what it's actually like to work as a UX Consultant in an agency environment.
I also ran a number of activities throughout the day to help the attendees start thinking like a UX researcher or designer. I was joined in the workshop by two junior researchers, who joined Nomensa as Graduates in 2022. They supprted the groups throughout the day, and talked through their experiences starting to work in user experience design.
Introducing the world of UX
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After introductions, I started the day with a presentation discussing what UX actually was. Many of the graduates had come from human sciences backgrounds, so UX was not something they'd ever studied. This opening talk was an opportunity to discuss the basics with the group, talking through research, UCD and how we can create and improve products through design thinking.
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I also discussed the differences between UX and UI, design and researcher roles - as this is still something that presents contention even between seasoned UXers working in the industry today.
User needs come first
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We then broke the attendees into mixed groups of 5. Each group would spend the rest of the day reflecting upon a number of design problems we had created, ideating and presenting back their solutions. We started by talking through a fictional food delivery app. The groups were given a set of template personas, and asked to fill in various attributes for a particular type of user they had chosen, before presenting back to the whole group. This enabled them to start thinking less about the product first, and more about the people that use it and the needs it fulfilled.
Understanding the journey
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Following the first activity, we had a another talk, where I discussed a number of recent projects I'd worked on, and how I applied user-centred design to solve a specific problem. This gave the attendees a better idea of the type of work they might undertake if they started a role in UX
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Following the talk, the groups then split off again but this time designed some basic user journeys. To do this, we gave them templates of a storyboard - and asked them to fill in 6 key stages they would expect the user to experience while ordering food. We asked everyone to think about difficulties they might encounter, their emotions and behaviours.
Let's design a product
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After we broke for lunch, the group returned to hear some talks from our Junior UX Consultants at Nomensa, to hear first hand what it's like to start a job in UX.
The final activity of the day was product ideation! Individually, the attendees were asked to come up with their own food delivery app, and design some basic pages (wireframes) on the app. They were given templates and an example to get them started. Following this, a number of volunteers presented their product back to the group, and we collectively discussed the things we thought worked well, and areas that could be improved. It was interesting to see people with no background in design create some really novel and unique ideas for a new food delivery app, based on the personas and journeys we'd developed earlier in the day.
The workshop was an amazing opportunity for me to see the types of people who were interested in the world of UX, and how they approached design problems from a variety of academic backgrounds. The workshop was a huge success, and I connected with a number of the attendees to discuss what they should do next to apply for a UX role. Since the workshop, some have successfully started their careers!