The process of creating an app or an advanced website can be complicated and time-consuming. In order to meet customer expectations, careful planning is necessary. The software company team should get to know the client's requirements in detail. In turn, the client has to know what cooperation with the software company looks like. To achieve this, user experience design workshops are organized. Let’s find out more about them
What are UX design workshops?
A UX design workshop is a meeting or series of meetings, thanks to which the app’s developer can thoroughly learn about the client's needs and ideas. They have a great advantage over a simple analysis of the client’s requirements as they lead to detailed discussions. The contractor and the client also have a chance to get to know each other, which facilitates further cooperation.
Starting cooperation with an UX design workshop allows you to precisely discuss basic functionalities of the app as well as needs and business goals of the client. There is also discussion about the competition and their products. The client learns about how the cooperation will proceed and what his participation in the entire process will be like.
Main advantages of UX design workshops
1. More accurate outline of the budget and schedule
During the workshop, the client can precisely present his vision. Together with the contractor, they detail it, describe the functionalities needed and define the time of product creation. This makes it easier to budget the project.
The client can often save money as well. If a software company has less precise knowledge of the requirements, it is not able to exactly say what the cost of the project will be. As a rule, he must assume that during the process, there will be additional tasks that will increase the price.
It should be added here that the precise setting of the schedule and budget takes place in the Fixed Price model. In the model of payment for working hours (Time & Material), where the product is shaped dynamically until the right effect is obtained, the time of handing over the work and costs are determined more indicatively (learn more about the methods of project cost settlement).
2. Meeting the users’ needs
Thanks to the UX design workshops, the client and the contractor can discuss in detail who the product is intended for. Not only is the target user defined in general terms, but, for example, personas are presented, i.e. the designed characters of future users. Each of them is assigned characteristics such as age, place of residence, relationship status or, among others, interests, aspirations, challenges, information about lifestyle.
By knowing who will be using the app, you can focus on the user's needs when building it. This is of fundamental importance, for example, when designing in the spirit of design thinking, where the user's perspective is the basic point of reference during work. Regardless of the adopted methodology, however, in order to build a successful user experience (UX), we need to know as much as possible about the potential user of the product.
3. Getting to know the client's company
UX design workshops provide an opportunity to talk about the specifics of the client’s activities. The contractor will learn how the client's industry works and what is most important in it. He will also understand the functioning of his company from the organizational side.
During the workshop, the software company team will also gain more information about the company's competition. They will understand what are its advantages over other players on the market and whether it wants to match or overtake them.
4. Project refinement
During the UX design workshops, the client has a chance to go beyond his perspective of perceiving the project. By talking to the contractor's independent experts, he will find out how they see the future product. They will provide objective comments, which is helpful because the originators of an idea may not be able to distance themselves from it.
Software company specialists know their craft perfectly and are able to propose new ideas. This can be used to introduce innovations to the design that will make it more competitive and better meet the needs of the user.
It must be remembered that the client is usually not an IT specialist and is not aware of the technical possibilities while creating apps. The software company team will make them aware of what functionalities can be additionally used or which modern technologies to use.
5. Better cooperation
UX design workshops allow the client's and software company's teams to get to know each other. This helps build trust between people who will have to collaborate in the future to create a product.
Above all, however, it is possible to determine how this cooperation will proceed. The client will understand the various stages of the app building process. These include, for example, the iterations often used in software development. These are the periods after which the product is tested and, if necessary, the actions performed are repeated until the optimal effect is achieved.
The client also takes part in product testing. He gets access to the prototype to provide feedback to the contractor. Thanks to this, the software can better meet his needs, as the product changes during development.
Being aware of what his participation in creating the app will be, the client has a chance to optimally organize the work. He designates people responsible for the tests and establishes contact channels with the contractor. All this will improve cooperation.
UX design workshops with WebMakers
1. Discussion of the client's vision of the project - concept, operation, overall development plan, scalability, etc.
At this stage, we ask the client for details. In fact, it is one of the most important stages that affects further work. We are interested in the idea, next steps, scalability and any other issues that affect the end product.
2. Discussion of the business aspects of the project and their confrontation with the technical aspects.
How the project is financed. If and how the project is to generate profits, and above all - who is the competition? At this stage, we will ask about any issues related to the profitability of the project, as well as technological and business partnerships. In addition, we will confront business assumptions with technical possibilities.
3. Dividing the project into individual modules and discussing each module separately, taking into account the challenges of the planned system.
Once we know the details of the project, we will be able to prepare a roadmap for further activities. We will divide the project into modules, and each of these parts will be planned in terms of challenges and potential problems that may arise during implementation.
4. Joint discussion / brainstorming / series of questions from the team to the entire project and individual modules.
Thanks to the fact that specialists from various fields participate in the workshop, we will be able to achieve the broadest vision of the project. The meeting is attended, among others, by the project manager, UX-designer, senior developers / tech-lead and a person responsible for business matters. All this to get to know the specifics of the project as broadly as possible and get to know all the challenges in advance.
5. Suggestions and advice on the project and possible solutions based on our experience and knowledge
WebMakers have been on the market for over 10 years. Therefore, as part of the workshops, we can use our experience in the field of mobile and web products. Working for clients from over 20 countries, we have gained knowledge that we use when designing your app.
6. Discussion of technical and performance issues, including the approach to infrastructure and consultancy in this area
Due to the fact that we have specialists in the field of server infrastructure in our team, we will be able to prepare appropriate technical facilities based on detailed information obtained during the workshops.
The result of the basic workshop will be the discussed scope of the project, divided into modules, a general technical concept and a list of matters requiring further reflection on the client's side, collected in the form of a brief with the assumptions discussed during the workshop (note - this is not a specification, but a simplified document, at a higher level generality).
The result of the UX design workshop will be a general UI vision of the system / graphic layer, presented in the form of mockups for 2-4 most important views / elements, constituting the starting point for detailed mock-up and UI design.
What are you risking if you resign from the workshop?
Cost underestimation
Digital reality makes new products that appear on the market extremely complicated, and thus generate much higher costs than, for example, 10 years ago. Nobody wants to learn during the course of the project that the budget has to be increased by 50% due to unforeseen expenses and errors. Therefore, during the workshops, we discuss the project in great detail so that the client is not surprised by the size of the budget. Thanks to this, simply put, your project cost will not be underestimated.
Wrong product
Even if your product is innovative on a global scale, in fact… it may not sell. As part of the workshops, we check potential users of the product and do competition research. During the meeting, you will also gain awareness whether the product will be profitable in relation to the amount of work that must be spent on its construction. The first goal will definitely be to create an MVP that will allow you to learn about the market.
Summary
As you can see - UX design workshops before the implementation of the project is an extremely valuable option that will allow you not only to refine the vision of your project, get to know its potential, but also check whether the project will be attractive to the market. Thanks to the fact that at one time and place we gather specialists from various fields and phases of a project's implementation, we can make your project come alive.
