When you research information about the app development process, you may notice that it’s often recommended to start it with workshops.
Depending on the purposes or methods, they may be known as Product Discovery, Design Thinking, or Product Design workshops. However, in general, all of them can be referred to as UX workshops.
Regardless of the label, you must know they’re not obligatory. However, omitting them sometimes makes it extra difficult to execute the project or contribute to its failure.
If you can’t decide whether UX workshops would be helpful in your project, learn about examples of use cases in which such sessions become indispensable.
Key takeaways
- UX workshops help define and clarify the project scope, ensuring everyone is on the same page. They foster a shared understanding of user needs, behaviors, and pain points.
- Workshops facilitate collaboration among team members, reducing misunderstandings.
- UX workshops provide a structured environment for discussing ideas and opinions, leading to a unified product vision.
- Workshops help prioritize features based on user value and business goals, ensuring the development team focuses on the most impactful elements.
- UX workshops incorporate user research and testing, ensuring user feedback is integrated into the design process. They focus on creating a positive UX, resulting in a more user-friendly and successful app.
- By addressing potential issues early on, UX workshops minimize the need for costly rework and enable you to avoid project delays.
- Workshops can spark creativity and innovation by bringing diverse perspectives together and encouraging brainstorming.
- UX workshops help define metrics for measuring the app’s success, which helps us determine whether the project is progressing in the right direction and achieving its objectives.
UX workshops and their role in mobile app projects
UX workshops are a broad term that encapsulates various types of workshops. They aim to solve a specific problem related to a product.
Effective workshops are based on the agenda prepared individually for a given project. They’re structured and have a clear goal. During sessions, participants join various workshop activities that are meant to get them closer to achieving their objectives.
Who are the workshop participants?
Participants who represent the client are usually people who have knowledge about business, users, technology you use, and stakeholders.
Specialists in software development, UI design, or UX research, for example, are also present in UX workshops.
Unique value – how workshops support the ideation process
We spend a lot of time with smartphones in our hands, but it’s not easy to maintain our attention.
There were 2.3 million apps on the Google Play store in August 2024, according to Statista. Just imagine how many of them try to gain your interest and become the ones you regularly use.
When designing your app and planning its development, you need to consider many factors that will make it valuable to users, intuitive, and stable. It’s much easier to do so with a group of different specialists who can share their perspectives with you. Together, you can make better decisions.
It makes UX workshops an effective way to solve project problems. Check out use cases to determine when they are worth conducting.
#1 When you’re unsure if the app will meet users’ needs
Let’s say you have created a detailed product vision with your in-house team. However, some of its members are unsure whether your target group will enjoy all your ideas. There are doubts regarding some functionalities and UI design.
App development is a large expense, so you can’t afford to create a mobile app with solutions that won’t appeal to users. Such an investment must more than pay for itself. That’s when UX workshops come into play.
How do the UX workshops help?
Before the workshops, we spent a lot of time on preparations and research. It is when we collect user information and analyze data provided by the client.
We learn about users’ lifestyles, motivations, needs, and problems. This is crucial because it helps us understand them, determine what they lack, and what might interest them in your product.
Then, during the UX workshops, we discuss the research insights, create personas representing the key user groups, and, based on this information, develop solutions that should meet their needs.
Additionally, we prepare the competitor analysis to check what solutions other apps offer and also what they lack.
Example
You’re about to develop a mobile eCommerce app for your online beauty store. You have a list of features that should be included in the MVP and want to evaluate it before the project execution starts.
As part of the Product Discovery workshop, you create user personas based on info from web app analytics and interviews with users (IDIs).
Together with other participants, you fill out the Value Proposition Canvas, which allows them to check which needs the app meets and what problems still remain unsolved, so you should work on them some more.
This exercise also verifies which ideas don’t seem valuable to users, so their execution would be unnecessary.
Propositions of activities: user personas, Value Proposition Canvas
#2 When it’s hard to estimate the app development cost
How much will it cost? It’s one of the first questions product managers ask when considering an app development project.
It’s hard to answer if your product vision is still too vague and you’re unsure what tools or technologies the team can use. Again, the UX workshops become helpful.
How do the UX workshops help?
The UX workshops begin by understanding the current market situation and sharing information about the product vision, the business, and the users. This allows the team to generate ideas for app solutions and choose the best tools and data sources.
This way, we can create a complete list of app features and estimate how long it should take to implement them. We also check how much different tools cost, discuss the final project estimation cost, and recommend the suitable billing model (Time and Material or fixed price).
As a result, our clients know how much the project implementation should cost, how much time it may take, and why.
Propositions of activities: Product Vision Board
#3 When you need alternative solutions to meet the budget
Money makes the world go ’round, as they sing in the Cabaret movie. Even the best ideas cannot become reality if their cost is too high.
Unfortunately, sometimes, finding alternative solutions on your own is too difficult. This is especially true if you lack enough experience in mobile app development and your in-house team lacks experts with such knowledge.
In this case, workshops can provide the answers you need.
How do the UX workshops help?
You can discuss your ideas with a cross-functional team. It’s essential to clearly explain to participants what you want to achieve with the feature that needs to be replaced with an alternative.
UI designers can share their propositions of functionalities from other digital products. Later, software developers will analyze the budget needed to implement the alternative functionalities. They may also propose different solutions.
As a result, you get ideas for features that should help you achieve your goals without draining your budget.
Example
You run a hotel and want to present rooms using AR technology. It would show potential guests how spacious and comfortable they are. The cost estimation of this feature is too high, but you still want to present rooms in a unique way.
After conducting competitor analysis and an ideation session, you decide to create a simple preview of the rooms with an option to zoom in on particular elements. The solution would be inspired by Google Maps in a Streetview mode.
Propositions of activities: How Might We cards, benchmark analysis
#4 When there’s not enough time to develop all your ideas, and you need to choose priorities
The software company prepared a project estimation for you. It turns out that making all your ideas a reality would take too long.
How do you decide which solutions should be included in the MVP and which ones must be implemented after the app launch? It’s best to do it with experts in mobile app development.
How do the UX workshops help?
Start with sharing your project goals with the workshop team.
Let’s say you need features that will solve users’ problems and enable your business to grow. It’s also essential to offer something with the potential to attract your target audience.
During the workshops, the team will evaluate how much your ideas cover user needs and compare your app vision with the competition. Then, experts with different specializations (such as software development, UI design, customer support, or product management) will vote for the solutions they find most needed.
Together, you will discuss your perspectives and choose the features to implement.
Propositions of activities: MoSCoW matrix, SWOT matrix, dot voting
#5 When it’s difficult to find the unique value proposition
You have a list of features, but it lacks something unique to attract users. It’s challenging to find a solution that none of your competitors have, especially with popular types of apps, such as eCommerce or banking. Luckily, workshops can help you find a solution.
How do the UX workshops help?
Participants analyze insights from user research to create personas and user journey maps. This way, they identify what engages potential users and see what stages of the customer journey trigger negative reactions.
They combine that knowledge with insights from the benchmark analysis, which should involve information about direct and indirect competition.
It allows the team to see which of their ideas are already in similar apps and what others propose as their unique values. Workshop participants can also use inspirations from apps outside their industry and adjust their unique features or services to their needs.
Example
You build an app that connects people who seek mentors to boost their professional development.
Your feature ideas for the MVP cover all the most critical user needs, but they don’t make the app unique.
In order to change it, during the workshop, a UX designer helps you map a user journey. You see that users often feel lost when starting conversations with their mentors. The team checks various types of apps that also place emphasis on conversations. Then, they fill out Unique Value Proposition Canvas to generate ideas that would encourage users to consult their problems with experts.
Propositions of activities: User Journey Mapping, Unique Value Proposition
#6 When it’s unclear what monetization model you should choose
UX workshops aren’t only about new ideas and user needs. We also conduct them to ensure that the final product vision meets business requirements. After all, apps are often supposed to make it profitable for companies to create and maintain them.
At the same time, we must ensure the best user experiences, and balancing these two goals is not always easy. It’s usually not an issue in eCommerce mobile apps, but it becomes more challenging when you don’t sell products.
How do the UX workshops help?
The team of specialists with years of experience in app development meets with your representatives who know the project well from a business perspective. This makes determining the risks and benefits of various app monetization strategies easier. Everyone can share their perspective on the matter and provide examples of apps that use a given method.
Then, all participants can vote for the solution they find more useful.
Highlights of our approach to UX workshops at Holdapp
The success of the UX workshop depends on several pillars.
Agenda
We always create workshop agendas individually for every project. In this process, we rely on user research and information from our clients. They tell us what they want to achieve through the workshops and the app.
For example, some businesses want to focus on idea generation or solve a problem observed in their apps. Others need to formulate unique value propositions or run prioritization workshops to evaluate their feature propositions and plan the app development.
This means that if you want to make the most out of the workshops, identify your project goals and consider the challenges it should help you face. We need it to create a good agenda and structure the session in a way that will help you achieve your objectives.
UX research
When we know what we want to achieve, we can choose the proper methods to gather data.
For example, we can collect info through web app analytics, surveys, market reports, in-depth interviews with potential users, or contextual inquiries.
It’s essential to rely on data instead of guesses because a significant part of the project’s success depends on how well we understand users and their problems. It allows us to create valuable features and design user-friendly UIs.
Team collaboration
Do you remember this friend of yours who always has an opinion on every topic? And the other one who gets all red when speaking in public? Workshop teams are relatively small, and all participants have something important to share, although it doesn’t come easy to every person. That’s why participants must listen to each other and act respectfully.
If participants aren’t open to others’ ideas and paying attention, the workshop won’t succeed.
Everyone on the team must focus, which can be especially challenging in remote workshops. But if you really want to generate good ideas, listen when the workshop facilitator asks you to turn off notifications and put your smartphone away. Everyone’s engagement is needed.
- Get to know more about our approach to Discovery workshops.
When and where do we conduct UX workshops?
- They often take place during the Product Discovery phase because they allow us to plan the app development better and boost the creative process.
- We can also organize them later, after the MVP launch. They help the team find solutions to observed problems and plan new features.
- It’s often possible to conduct remote UX workshops, which is recommended, especially when participants live in different cities.
Summary
UX workshops help businesses answer questions related to mobile app development. While the goals and expected outcomes of every project can vary, the process is essentially the same: collecting information, analyzing it, brainstorming solutions, and evaluating them.
Although it sounds simple, it takes great care and skills to conduct a valuable workshop session. But when it’s done right, the final result should give your business a significant competitive advantage.
If you want to see if Discovery or Design Thinking workshops are for you, fill us in about your project.
