How do you know what you’re building is important to your customers? As a developer, it’s easy for you to jump right into the code when given a problem to solve, but what if you build something that nobody wants? Taking the time to design and research your product can help you better meet the needs of customers while avoiding potential rework down the line. This hands-on workshop will present you with a problem that needs solving and guide you on researching, designing and prototyping a solution. You will work in a small group to evaluate the problem and design a solution. Your group will turn the design into an interactive prototype and conduct usability studies to ensure you’re meeting customer needs. Finally, your group will iterate on the design and present your findings to a stakeholder. At the end of this workshop, you will have the fundamentals needed to research and design the solutions your customers want. You will also learn tactics for selling the value of design and research to your client, and how to best present your research results.

List of what attendees will learn:
- Be able to use design software to develop interactive prototypes
- Understand the different types of UX research and feel comfortable running a usability study
- Learn how to summarize findings and present to stakeholders