Detroit UX: World Usability Day

November 12 was the 10th year anniversary of World Usability Day. This was the Detroit User Experience 3rd World Usability Day event. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan hosted the event at their Renaissance center building downtown Detroit.

The event presenters were Gaby Dorantes and Ezekiel Harris.

Gaby is a designer, activist and innovator. She uses human-centered design to learn directly from the people for whom she is designing. Her projects have combatted economic and basic needs challenges through product and experience design. Her focus on research design allow her to identify latent user needs that create meaningful impact for the customers she serves.

Ezekiel is a social impact designer specializing in social innovation and human-centered design. He has first-hand experience creating positive social and economic change by transforming places, systems, and communities through products, services, and experiences. He has the unique ability for rapid prototyping to confront deeply entrenched social challenges.

The event kicked off with being given a colored post-note and asked to create a gift with it for your partner within a minute. Not exactly a easy task. Sadly my partner received a star LOL. Gaby and Ezekiel gave a great speech about how to rock a quick team brainstorming session. Attached photo has a overview.

We then gathered into teams and rapidly wrote down anything that came to mind on colored post-it notes. 20-30 ideas for each of the 5 questions. No judgement and the crazier the better. (My team took that to heart) Each question gave new obstacles to take random thoughts into a solid concept.

Why should your team brainstorm together? People who excel in brainstorming sessions are those who can work together to work off each others ideas to come up with a working solution. Each team member can add different angle that might work better then the original idea.

The interactive brainstorming session seemed to be enjoyed by all participants. Everyone seemed to learned or taken something from this event.