I work with a bunch of incredibly smart people. The trouble with that is they have lots of opinions and they want them heard, damn them!
I started paper prototyping sessions quite some time ago as a way of letting all of theses opinions out and getting some agreement as to what it is I should go away and design. It has worked well. So well that we do now have a small set of pages which we use on pretty much every project, that everyone almost always agrees on because they helped design those pages.
I have always participated fully in these sessions, drawing up my vision of how I think it should be. I have always come away from the meetings a little tense, though.
Yesterday I went to a paper prototyping meeting and didn’t draw anything. It was a revelation.
I was able to be much more objective about the ideas being put forward because I didn’t feel any pressure to push my ideas. All pressure I was putting on myself to produce the ‘right’ solution were gone.
It was so much easier to make suggestions and to think about the complications that may arise from some proposed solutions without my version of events up on the wall. I suppose I also removed what could look like me pushing my own agenda if I had a UI sat there and was disagreeing with something someone else was suggesting.
Anyway, there it is, made me surprisingly happy.
Comments
I did exactly the same thing in an innovation session that I ran the other day. Not drawing meant I could listen and give my full attention to the participants (some of whom may not be too confident with their drawing skills)
I introduced myself as the facilitator and just let people draw and present their ideas.
Another key thing I found useful was to avoid evaluation in this session. The evaluation came the following day but it was good to let people get their ideas out their and explore them without being shot down by the louder voices.
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