Route · Public Design Atlas
Prepare a workshop
To facilitate a working session with a team or a client, from start to finish.
Open and align the group
Make sure everyone understands the challenge the same way before you start.
How might we…?
A technique for turning a problem or an insight into an open, optimistic question that invites ideas: “How might we…?”
How it’s used
How it’s done
- You start from an insight or a specific problem.
- You reframe it as a question neither too broad nor too narrow.
- You use it as the starting point for ideation.
- Output
- Open questions that invite ideas
- Avoid
- Putting the solution inside the question (“How might we build an app that…?”).
Jobs to be done
Understanding customers by the progress they are trying to make in a specific situation, the “job” they hire a product for, not by their demographics.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Look at the situation. When, where and with whom the product is chosen.
- Find the job. What progress is sought and what alternatives are used.
- Design for that job. Improve what matters in that situation.
- Avoid
- Confusing the job with a product feature.
Design principles
A short set of rules, drawn from research and the project's values, that guide design decisions so they are consistent.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- They are drawn from insights and from the project's values.
- Write only a few, clear and easy to apply.
- They are used to decide and to review the work.
- Avoid
- Writing principles so general that anyone would agree (“be easy to use”).
LEGO® Serious Play®
A workshop method in which each person answers a question by building a metaphorical model with LEGO bricks and then explains what it means.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Set the question or challenge.
- Build each person their own model, in a few minutes.
- Share and reflect tell the story of the model, listen, and repeat the cycle with another question.
- Output
- Models made of bricks that give shape to each person’s ideas, and a conversation in which everyone takes part
- Avoid
- Interpreting someone else’s model or correcting it.
Understand the problem
Share what is known about the people and the situation.
Journey map
A method for representing a person's path through a service, step by step, with their actions, touchpoints, emotions and pain points.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Research with real people, not imagined ones.
- Draw the journey with its emotions and pain points.
- Choose the moments most worth improving.
- Output
- A step-by-step map of the journey, with actions, touchpoints, emotions and pain points
- Avoid
- Drawing it from the office without talking to anyone: it will be the team's opinion, not the real experience.
Affinity diagram
Writing each research observation on a note and grouping the notes by affinity, bottom-up, until the themes that connect them emerge.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Write one observation on each note.
- Group the notes that are alike, without prior categories.
- Give a title to each group and arrange the groups.
- Output
- Observations grouped into themes
- Avoid
- Starting with categories already decided: that way you only confirm what you believed.
Five whys
A technique for finding the root cause of a problem by asking “why?” several times in a row, each time about the previous answer.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Describe the problem with concrete facts.
- Ask “why?” about each answer.
- Stop when you reach a cause that can be corrected.
- Output
- A chain of causes that reaches the root cause of the problem
- Avoid
- Following a single chain of causes when the problem has several.
Ecosystem map
A map of all the people, organizations and systems involved in a service and what they exchange: information, money, products or trust.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- List the actors: people, organizations and systems.
- Place them closer to the center the more direct the relationship.
- Draw with arrows what goes from one to another.
- Output
- A map of the actors in the service and what they exchange
- Avoid
- Drawing only your organization: the service also depends on others.
Generate ideas
Many ideas first; judging them comes later.
Brainstorming
A group session to generate many ideas about a problem, leaving judgment for later.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Frame the problem as a specific question.
- Suggest ideas without criticizing them.
- Group and choose once no more ideas come.
- Output
- A long list of ideas about a problem
- Avoid
- Letting the most senior person speak first.
Brainstorming in writing: six people write three ideas in five minutes and pass the sheet on so the next person can build on them.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Hand out the sheets with the problem written at the top.
- Write three ideas in five minutes.
- Pass the sheet and continue someone else’s ideas.
- Output
- Sheets of written ideas that build on one another
- Avoid
- Voting without having read all the sheets.
Crazy 8s
Fold a sheet into eight panels and draw a variation of an idea in each one, at one minute per sketch.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Fold the sheet into eight panels.
- Sketch one variation per minute.
- Choose the best one to develop.
- Output
- Eight sketched variations of an idea
- Avoid
- Spending the time drawing well.
SCAMPER
A list of seven questions for generating ideas from something that already exists: substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, and rearrange.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose what to transform: a product, a service, a step.
- Go through the seven questions: what do I substitute, what do I combine, what do I remove…?
- Choose the ideas worth testing.
- Output
- Variations of something that already exists, one per question
- Avoid
- Filling in the seven letters as a formality.
Design by analogy
An ideation method that looks for similar problems in other fields, like nature or other sectors, and transfers the structure of their solution to your own problem.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Describe the function: what needs to be achieved?
- Search for who else solves that.
- Transfer and adapt the idea.
- Output
- Ideas carried over from solutions to similar problems in other fields
- Avoid
- Copying the form of a solution from another field without understanding why it works.
Choose
Narrow down to a few ideas, quickly and fairly.
Dot voting
Each person spreads a limited number of dots (stickers or marks) among the displayed options; those with the most dots move on to the next phase.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Display all the options in view.
- Vote with a few dots, in silence.
- Count and discuss the most voted ones.
- Output
- A selection of ideas ranked by support
- Avoid
- Voting in turns and in full view, because the first dots sway everyone else.
Six Thinking Hats
A way of running a group discussion: everyone adopts the same mode of thinking at once, represented by a colored hat, and they switch it as they go.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Set out the topic and the order of the hats.
- Think together wearing the same hat, and switch when it’s time.
- Conclude with blue: what is decided.
- Output
- An orderly discussion that looks at a topic through several ways of thinking
- Avoid
- Using the hats to label people (“you are the black hat”).
Three criteria an idea must balance: it meets what people need and want, it can be built with the available means, and the organization can sustain it.
How it’s used
How it works
- Assess each idea against the three criteria.
- Spot which of the three raises the most doubts.
- Test that doubt first, with a prototype or with data.
- Avoid
- Using it as a quick vote, without data.
MoSCoW method
A method that sorts requirements or ideas into four groups for a specific release: what must be in (Must), what should (Should), what could (Could) and what won’t this time (Won’t).
How it’s used
How it’s done
- List everything that could be done.
- Sort each item into one of the four groups.
- Agree on what stays out with whoever decides.
- Output
- A prioritized list in four groups
- Avoid
- Marking almost everything as a must.
Shape the best ones
Make the ideas visible so they can be discussed.
Sketching
Drawing ideas in a quick, cheap and open way to explore many of them and discuss them before committing to one.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Draw several ideas by hand.
- Show them and listen.
- Choose which one moves on to a prototype.
- Output
- Many quick sketches of ideas to compare and discuss
- Avoid
- Polishing in a digital tool before you have several ideas.
Storyboard
A sequence of panels that shows a person using a product or a service in context, step by step.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose the situation and the person.
- Draw the steps in a few panels.
- Share it and gather feedback.
- Output
- A sequence of panels showing use, step by step
- Avoid
- Drawing only screens instead of the situation.
Bodystorming
Ideating in the real place, or a similar one, and acting out the situations and ideas there with your body, instead of imagining them from a meeting room.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Go to the place or recreate a similar one.
- Act out the situation and the ideas.
- Note what works and what doesn’t.
- Output
- Ideas tried out physically in the real place
- Avoid
- Doing it without research data: you would be acting out your assumptions.
Role playing
The team, and sometimes users, act out a situation with simple or cardboard objects to imagine how a product or service would work.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Prepare the scene and the roles.
- Act out the situation with the imagined object.
- Discuss what worked and what didn't.
- Output
- Acted-out situations that show how an idea would work
- Avoid
- Turning it into theater without a design question.
Make it real
Turn what you chose into something that can be tested.
Prototyping
Building quick, incomplete versions of an idea, from a paper sketch or a cardboard mock-up to something that works, to answer a design question before developing the idea.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose the question: whether it works for people, how it looks or whether it can be built.
- Build the minimum that answers it: paper, cardboard, mock-up, wireframe or code.
- Test it and decide what to change.
- Output
- Prototypes, from a sketch to something that works
- Avoid
- Polishing the look when you don't yet know if the idea works.
Desktop walkthrough
A scale prototype, made with cardboard, building pieces, or figures, on which the team moves the characters step by step to rehearse a service from start to finish.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Set up the space and the characters on the table.
- Walk through the service step by step, out loud.
- Note questions and failures, change things, and play again.
- Output
- A model of the service and a list of changes
- Avoid
- Polishing the model: it takes time away from playing.
Usability testing
A method in which real people try to do specific tasks with a product while being observed, to find out where they get stuck and why.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Prepare realistic tasks, without saying how to do them.
- Observe each person as they try and think aloud.
- Note where they get stuck and decide what to fix first.
- Output
- A list of usability problems, with where they appear and why
- Avoid
- Asking “do you like it?”: measure what people do, not what they think.