Playbook for universal design

Universal design methods for more inclusive solutions

Your favourite thing Add/remove

Purpose:

The purpose of ‘Your favorite thing’ is to observe how the user interacts with an artifact, and to ask them to point out different elements that you would find useful to get insights regarding. Those can either be the ones that are specified in the template:

  • Your favorite thing
  • The thing that is most convenient
  • Thing that makes you most proud
  • The thing that is missing
  • The thing you would most like to change

Or you can create your own prompts using the blank templates.

By using the prompts as boundary objects you can increase your chance of gathering insights that the user might not otherwise think of if asked directly.



Step by step Facilitating tips Materials needed Goes well with Download template (pdf)

Tips to include participants who are not able to:

See

If your participant is visually impaired then you could ask a documenter to describe the artifact to the participant in as much detail as deemed necessary. That person would then document for the participant if they would like to write anything down.

Move

If the participant can not control their movements a documenter or other participants could lead the prompts for the participant.

Hold

If the participant can not hold on to a prompt the method could be read out loud or a documenter could note down what is being said.

Speak

If the participant can not speak sign language or other symbol language could be used.

Hear

If the participants can not hear sign language could be used or everything is communicated in writing.

Focus

Depending on the ability being limited according to not being able to focus because of distractions or because of time crunch - either reduce time spent or increase the time spent for decision making and discussing.

Overview

Input

An artifact

Output

Insights, pictures

Complexity

Moderate

Time

10-30 min

Participants

1-2

Activity

Core abilities: The user needs to be able to communicate their thoughts



Step by step:

  1. You hand the user the prompt cards you have chosen as being the most appropriate, and in line with the insights your would like to collect.

  2. Ask the user to place the first prompt near the corresponding element of your artifact and take a picture.

  3. Ask the user to explain why they chose to place the prompt there. Make sure to ask open ended questions to heighten the chance of deep insights.

When doing this method you should consider:

Depending on what your desired output is, consider how in depth the follow up questions you ask should be. Would you rather focus on a few prompts and have longer in depth discussions for each? Or would you benefit more  from having a larger number of prompts and thereby gathering a broader number of insights, but not as in depth?

Materials needed:

Prompts, camera