The Art of Artifacts Workshop
I led a virtual creativity workshop for Nava Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) 's Design Org to hold an engaging discussion on simple ways for maturing teams’ design practice in client delivery.
Members of Design Org consist of brand strategists, designers/researchers, content writers, and front-end developers.
Workshop Motive
Why did I choose this topic?
In short, design teams produce lots of materials to deliver for clients. When they finish each delivery stage, the artifact materials speak on behalf of the team’s expertise in bringing the client’s vision and goals to life.
This workshop served as my way for encouraging Org members to elevate their project artifacts in usable, memorable, and appealing ways that help clients remember vital details and effectively make decisions.
Plus, it’s a bonus if clients want to share exceptional artifacts with their stakeholders.
Main Ideas
I provided the following prompts to consider as discussion topics that we explored in conversation.
Usable
• Does the artifact meet WCAG and 508 Compliance?
• Does the client need a software license to access the artifact before the team leaves?
Memorable
• Does the artifact creatively help the client recall important details?
• Does the artifact’s design help the client easily understand the narrative?
Appealing
• Does the artifact’s quality hold the client’s attention?
• Does the artifact inspire the client to share it with other stakeholders?
Although those prompts helped with expanding the discussion, I emphasized taking the client’s perspective (needs and goals) as the core incentive to pursue.
Example Artifact
Then to make the conversation more engaging, I shared the following interactive journey map along with my rationale. Its content explains the timeline for hosting a Design Salon (it's an Org thing).
This example showcased how I transformed a static text page into a shareable interactive Figma prototype. It’s both memorable and appealing. But ensuring it was usable raised a major industry-wide concern.
With "usable" being defined as accessible for any user group across the product and UX design field, a big factor interaction designers must address is whether or not Figma prototypes are usable (i.e. accessible) for diverse users.
At the time of my workshop, accessibility features in Figma were still a work in progress. So I created an accompanying PDF-version to make it usable.
Surprise gift: I shared the Figma file as a template for design teams to use on their projects. Yes, I squeezed in an Oprah moment.
Then, I moderated breakout group discussions where everyone shared their reflections on how they might transform client materials into creative artifacts.
Impact
My workshop provoked excellent insights, ideas, and introspection from Design Org members with actionable concepts that each participant got jazzed up to carry forward.
Reflection
It felt great witnessing workshop participants get jazzed up to share their great examples, thoughtfully craft their own takeaways, and dream up creative ways of advancing project artifacts as a means for enhancing their future projects.
But in hindsight, I would add the following consideration into the discussion topics:
Adaptable
• Does the artifact help the client manage the project’s future stages?
I learned this lesson from Nava’s VP of Design because they highlighted updating artifacts as a major factor for meeting their management needs. In this case, a Confluence page held more value to them than an interactive Figma prototype or PDF. If you’ve ever needed to update and redistribute a PDF, then you can relate to the difference in ease compared to a Confluence page update. Even a microsite can serve the same means if budgets can't stretch for Atlassian tools.
Addressing ease in updating artifacts plays a vital role in scaling projects and businesses. So making adaptable artifacts shifts them from being helpful to essential for future needs.