Earlier this week, we ran a workshop with the third year Product and Interaction Design students at Ravensbourne’s campus in North Greenwich. As Alumni of Ravensbourne who benefited from the University’s connections with industry during our time there, we were privileged to go and share our industry knowledge and experience with the students.
How we delivered the workshop
Through a mixture of front-led teaching and interactive, group activities, we taught the students about the importance of research, the difference between market research and usability, and key moderator skills. Each of the students bought along a prototype from their current degree project; everything from toilet brushes to hairdryers! During the day, we helped them to work in groups to further understand their users, create discussion guides and go out to do some guerrilla-style testing.
When they returned armed with data from their testing, we helped them analyse their findings and use the insights uncovered to move into the next phase of their projects.
What they got out of it
The day was fun, interactive and pushed the students out of their comfort zones to get some real insight to help develop their projects, but more importantly, gave them a research methodology that will be invaluable as they graduate and start working. The work they managed to do in just a few hours, gave them a realistic insight into the life of a UX consultant, and a greater understanding of what it might be like to become a researcher or collaborate with one.
Want your University to be next?
Using the learning from the Ravensbourne session, we hope to develop this workshop as a free offering for other Universities; following our culture of educating the wider world, not just our internal staff and immediate industry. If you’re from a University and are interested do get in touch!
Want to learn more?
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