User Experience Innovation: User Centered Design that Works

Step 3: Run the Workshop

Now it's time to run the workshop, as illustrated in Figure 13-3. One advantage of doing innovation with users is that it gives you a good chance of designing things that actually cover a real user need. You can also verify your solutions quickly, since you can ask the users questions right away.

Figure 13-3. Example of a lead user workshop

Another advantage is that your users will likely come up with quite different solutions than you do. You may be stuck in a company- or technology-driven mindset that the lead users do not have.

Finally, during the workshop you can identify user needs and core tasks that you might ...