The Destiny from Within: Using Participatory Design to Improve Employee Experience

1- Short Session Description.

Many people are now familiar with the idea of User Experience, but this session focuses on another side of the same die: Employee Experience. Techniques used in User Experience can be used to uncover the needs and desires of employees to improve their work experience.

During this hands-on workshop, players will embark on an adventure in which they must work together to come up with a new design for a library EMPLOYEE space (not a public space). Using experience and skills gained during the workshop (aka UX and Participatory Design activities), players must avoid pitfalls of discord and slay dragons of misunderstanding to capture the Crown of Consensus. Based on an actual (and successful!) adventure undertaken at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, in which a team of 8 players were able to work together to design a teaching classroom that meet everyone’s needs!

(Main title taken from the Adventure Title Generator: https://rasmusrasmussen.com/random-rpg-tools/adventure-title-generator/)

2- Session Style/Format

Workshop

3- Takeaways:

Participants will work through a scenario in small groups of 3-5 in which they must use UX and Participatory Design techniques (provided) to come to consensus on how to improve a space used primarily by library employees (think teaching classrooms, circulation area, staff lounge, etc.). In D&D style, the facilitator will craft the adventure to include successes, failures, and roadblocks to overcome.

In addition, participants will be provided with example outlines they could use to craft and run their own Employee Experience space improvement workshop.

4- Organization.

Fully formed, but if others have similar experience or just want to help facilitate the workshop as assistant Dungeon Masters I’m open!

5- Contact Information

Amanda VerMeulen, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, aavermeulen@smcm.edu