Joanna Górka, project manager of DT.Uni - Design Thinking Approach for an

Interdisciplinary University. Experienced in project management, conducting workshops and

seminars, and cooperation with NGO’s and non-commercial sector.

Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Lublin, Poland)

e-mail: j.gorka@umcs.pl

Online tools supporting design thinking workshops

Keywords: online tools, design thinking, workshop, web platform

Abstract: The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has shown that flexibility and fast adaptation to the

new reality is essential not only in business but also in education sector. Modern

organizations should always be prepared and open to new solutions and ideas. One of the

most important assets of using design thinking approach is user-centered designing.

Switching from an offline to an online event in a few weeks is very challenging but not

impossible. The key is to find perfect online tools which support workshop implementation.

Last few months have shown all of us how fast we can adopt to a new situation and

how flexible our working/studying structures are. It was and still is, a great exam for all

Higher Education Institutions (HEI). For some of them, changing the working and teaching

styles was very difficult. The same structure, built for decades, wasn’t flexible enough and

adapting to the new reality required hours of work in different units.

According to current law and regulations in each country, all Universities from the

DT.Uni consortium1, needed to indicate some changes and updates, eventually ending up

cancelling all offline activities (lectures, classes, events, business trips). The International

Innovation Bootcamp for students within the DT.Uni project was planned as a 4 day event in

Lublin (Poland) from April 21st to April 24th. All workshops materials were already prepared,

the agenda was set, Partners and informal meetings confirmed. Due to the COVID-19 crisis,

it was not possible to gather in Lublin and whole team had to rearrange the plans.

1 The project Dt.Uni - Design Thinking Approach for an Interdisciplinary University is coordinated by Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Poland) in cooperation with 7 partners: Ekonomicka Univerzita v Bratislave (Slovakia), Birmingham City University (the United Kingdom), Technische Universitaet Dresden (Germany), Universita Degli Studi di Roma la Sapienza (Italy), Haskolinn a Bifrost (Iceland), Universiteit van Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Instituto Politecnico da Guarda (Portugal). The project (reference number: 2017-1-PL01-KA203-038527) has been co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. More information about the project: www.dtuni.umcs.pl

Following a number of online meetings, the core team decided to organize the event

in a virtual reality and use online tools to manage the design thinking workshop. Challenged

by the lack of time2 and uncertainty over university organization, the team was to plan online

activities while being extremely flexible. Right after setting up the new date, the decision

about the final agenda of the workshop (limited to exploring and developing the challenges)

and used tools (one for communication and one as a working space) was made. Further work

on adapting the materials and preparing the working space for students was made by Natasa

Brouwer-Zupancic, Andre Nusselder (both from Universiteit van Amsterdam - coordinating

partner for this activity) and Joanna Górka (MCSU, project manager).

The online workshop successfully kept the interactive character which is the very

feature of a design thinking approach. The students developed varied competences, such as

improving their capacity to solve complex problems, adapting to rapidly changing

circumstances, critical and creative thinking, flexibility, ‘learning to learn’, teamwork, and

language skills (the workshop was run in English and students were working in mixed

groups). The goal was for each team to develop a unique design vision or point-of-view to a

complex (wicked) problem, and frame it in an innovative way.

Finally, from 5th to 7th of May 2020 an International Student Workshop on Design

Thinking, took place and 33 students from 7 Partner’s universities participated in it3. The

features for a tool for communication and working space that were taken into account by the

team are presented in the Table 1.

Table 1. Requirements for online tools

Tool for communication Working space tool

1. video and audio connection for

participants,

2. ready to work in a group up to 70

participants,

3. scheduling the meeting,

4. recording feature,

5. chat,

1. no limit for the number of editors,

2. canvas with basic templates you can

adopt to your needs,

3. possibility to use own templates and

prepare the canvas before sharing

with participants,

4. easy to download the final results,

2 The final decision about cancelling the event in Lublin and preparing the online activity was made at the beginning of April 2020.3 Due to final exam session at Haskolinn a Bifrost, Icelandic students were unable to attend.

6. splitting into rooms/groups during

the meeting,

5. easy to manage for participants,

6. possibility to add

images/videos/links,

Prepared by Joanna Górka

After preparing the list of possible online tools, the team decided to ZOOM (https://zoom.us/)

and MIRO (https://miro.com/).

Preparing the tools before the workshop

The long hours of work have started even prior to the workshop. On top of recruiting

participants, sending invitations and emails with pre-tests, as well as working with online

tools, it was crucial for the team to make sure the activities’ quality is maximized. . Firstly,

Joanna, Natasa and Andre carefully tested chosen tools and all of their features to determine

how those can be used and what possible problems might the participants come across.

During 1-hour ZOOM meeting, they carried out tests on creating the breakout rooms,

splitting into groups, coming back to plenary room, saving chat and recording. The testers

noticed, i.e. that the breakout rooms’ chats and plenary rooms are separated. To assure the

comfortable communication between organizers and facilitators, they decided to use simple

google doc document as an internal chat. The next step was to prepare the working spaces for

each group in MIRO by preparing own templates based on previously agreed agenda. The

final look of the plain board is presented in the picture 1.

Picture 1: Plain boar for group collaborative work

Source: Prepared by Joanna Górka at MIRO

After that, on 30th of April, the team of organizers and facilitators arranged ZOOM

meeting to get familiar with the tool and see how it will be organized. This kind of online

kick-off is significant to all beginners who conduct online workshops and no one from the

team has had previous experience in this way of group work/ teamwork 4. Students who took

part in the meeting, were informed the day before on what tools would be used and were

given instructions on how to join them. During the introduction part of the workshop,

organizers advised of all basic information on ZOOM and MIRO as well as reminded the

participants about the working rules. Unfortunately, during the first 20 minutes, some

technical problems appeared (MIRO access issues, splitting into rooms feature etc.).

However, this would have taken much longer without carrying out previous tests.

Work in ZOOM

The team decided to use ZOOM as a basic tool for communication between all

organizers and participants. Fortunately, the organizers were able to use the UvA licence and

there was no need to pay extra for the professional access to the tool. The workshop was

conducted in:

1. a plenary room,

2. 9 breakout rooms - one for each group.

4 The value of the kick-off (not only for team members but also for participants) was mentioned by all 4 interviewed experienced process moderators: Agnieszka Mróz, Martyna Tarnawska, Paweł Baryła and Krzysztof Ożóg. They confirmed, this is the best way to make sure that users know basic features of each tools and to avoid most of the problematic situations.

The workshop introduction was available to all of the invited participants and

organizers (44 persons in total) and was run in a plenary room. It consisted of introduction to

the workshop in general along with introduction to each of activities, summing ups, groups

presentations and self-reflection part. The rule was as follows: one person from organizing

team speaks (mostly Andre Nusselder) while others are either writing on chat or using ‘raise

a hand’ button to if notify they want to ask/comment something (see: Picture 2).

Picture 2: Plenary room

Source: Screenshot from ZOOM, 5th of May 2020

One of the most important feature of ZOOM is the possibility to manually move

participants into smaller groups and being able to work in ‘breakout rooms’ without closing

the tool or connecting in other way. What’s more, there is also an option to limit the time in

breakout rooms - once the time for the exercise ran out, participants were automatically

taken back to the plenary room . The breakout rooms were used by the groups during the

work on their tasks. Each group consisted of students and at least one facilitator just in case

there was a need for further explanation or any questions arised.

The work in ZOOM went very smoothly. Is was easy for the team to manage the tool

and use needed features like recording (groups final presentations), sharing screens (during

presentations), and the chat (especially to ask questions or as a platform to self-reflection

after the workshop) - see Pictures 3 and 4 below.

Picture 3: Sharing screens in ZOOM (examples from group presentations)

Source: Screenshots from ZOOM, 7th of May 2020

Picture 4: Self-reflection at chat in ZOOM

Source: Screenshot from ZOOM, 7th of May 2020

Work in MIRO

MIRO (miro.com), as described on their website, is an online collaborative

whiteboard platform to bring teams together, anytime, anywhere5. The tool is very popular

within design thinking facilitators and in the last couple of years has been competing against

MURAL6. While working in MIRO, users can prepare their own templates and adjust the

white canvas however they want, or use and adapt internal templates which are shared by the

producer for free (some of pre-defined templates are presented in the picture 5).

5 https://miro.com/6 MURAL will be described later on in this article.

Picture 5: Templates for design thinking process in MIRO (examples).

Source: https://miro.com/templates/

As it was mentioned above, each of 9 groups get their own board/working space. The

prepared canvas (presented in the picture 1) included:

1. the agenda with the timeframes and information about financing,

2. the templates for all 8 exercises with instructions and tips,

3. additional sticky notes.

The way of using the tool during the workshop, was individual. In some groups, all

participants were actively filling up the templates with their ideas, in others, one ‘writer’ was

chosen to make notes and put them on the screen. What’s more, participants not only used

basic tools like notes or text frames, but also decided to use images, links, created new frames

etc. (some examples are presented below).

Picture 6: Working in MIRO - using different features

Source: Screenshots from MIRO, 7th of May 2020

In the day between the sessions, students were able to use the tools of their own

choice or MIRO. The rule was to be ready to present what they found out during the

presentations. Some groups decided to prepare separate presentations (in Power Point), others

used external tools to gather the research results (online surveys tools, notes from interviews

in google sheet)and then pasted them into the board in MIRO (Picture 7).

Picture 7: Presenting field exploration results in MIRO

Source: Screenshots from MIRO, 7th of May 2020

The option of adapting whiteboards and adding own materials (in different formats)

are the most important advantages of using MIRO in design thinking processes/workshops.

The needs of facilitators and participants can be fulfilled by using this platform.

Participants’ opinions

During the workshop, all organizers and facilitators were assisting students in using

online tools and finding solutions to problematic situations (especially at the beginning of

work). After the workshop, participants were asked to share their feedback in an anonymous

questionnaire. The question about the tools was the following: What do you think about the

tools we were using (ZOOM and MIRO)? Did you find them useful and helpful for working

online? What other tools would you recommend us to use next time? All of the gathered

answers (21 from 33 participants) were positive (some examples below, original writing):

I found them surprisingly useful, I had never worked with Miro before and I think that

I will definetly incorporate it in the future.

Zoom was also a great tool for communication and the breakout-Rooms worked

really well.

zoom and miro were really helpful, I liked the splitting in zoom and miro was really

handy

One person noticed and mentioned problems: I found them both very pleasant, but

Miro has some problems in managing access and editors and another one suggested a

solution to make it better: MIRO was great and useful! It might be a good idea to provide a

video tutorial to make the best use of it. Also zoom is useful, but it is best to connect with two

devices. As for other recommended tools, the CANVA (canva.com)7 - for making nice

storytelling and Slack (slack.com)8 - for communication, were mentioned.

The team fully agreed on the positive feedback on the chosen tools, as they both

meet needs and expectations. Using them was in no way problematic which proves well that

design thinking process may be implemented online without any obstacles

Other recommended tools for collaborative work

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, many companies and institutions couldn’t avoid

changing the way of working and decided to cancel or rearrange planned activities. Where it

was possible, they switched to remote work on daily basis. The way of implementing changes

in the organizations has also been modified and design thinking (or service design) processes

are too, carried out online.

The author asked 4 professional facilitators and moderators of the processes for

sharing their experience on how every-day work changed because of current situation in

Poland9. All of them proved to be very flexible and showed their ability to adapt to a new

situation in a timely manner. Since all offline events were cancelled in Poland (25th March),

7 CANVA - easy to manage web application to create stunning designs and documents.8 Slack - communication tool, perfect for remote teams. By working in channels gives team members a shared view of progress and purpose.9 Interviewed professionals:Agnieszka Mróz - Service Designer, user researcher, facilitator in Service Sandbox Agnieszka Mróz, member of Concordia Design trainers team, over 10 years professional experience in the field.Martyna Tarnawska - Service Design Lead & Digital Marketing Trainer at Socjomania, 5 years experience in the field.Paweł Baryła - service designer working on digitalization and promotion Moje ING mobile app, supporting process development and individual clients banking.Krzysztof Ożóg - consultant, trainer/facilitator and speaker in the field of service design thinking and customer experience, from 2017 in FUZERS team.

they switched to remote work with their clients and started conducting the workshops and

processes while using different online tools.

For security reasons, some companies and public institutions required using internal

communication and/or working space tools which meant that at times, the facilitator was not

able to work in the preferred tool.. As long as they could prepare the whiteboards platform

before the work, it wasn’t problematic. See below some examples of tools they are using with

given comments:

1. Metroretro (https://metroretro.io/)

Collaborative web application created to help teams run productive, engaging and fun

retrospectives. It is based on using sticky notes that can be assigned to various categories. It

also allows an unlimited number of users to work at the same time, has internal emojis as

well as a voting option. The application is asy in terms of applying adaptations and creating

your own templates. As Paweł said: easy as using flipchart while making Persona or

Customer Journey templates.

2. MURAL (https://www.mural.co)

The most popular digital workspace for visual collaboration, used by Agnieszka, Martyna,

and Krzysztof. As summed up on their website: People benefit from MURAL’s speed and

ease of use in creating diagrams, which are popular in design thinking and agile

methodologies, as well as tools to facilitate more impactful meetings and workshops10. Very

similar to MIRO, still competing with this platform for the first place in all rankings. Features

mentioned by facilitators

- allowing the facilitator to block a part of the board,

- cheaper when working in bigger groups (no additional fees for guests),

- timer and voting option,

- predefined templates,

- easy board export (in different formats).

3. Other used in specified purposes as additional tools to MURAL:

- Stormboard (https://stormboard.com/) - for ideation phase of the process,

recommended especially for brainwriting,

10 https://www.mural.co/

- Mentimeter ( https://www.mentimeter.com/) - for live polls, quizzes, word clouds,

Q&As - very useful during longer sessions to attract participants and introduce short

and fun activities,

- Funretro (https://funretro.io/) - fun sprint retrospectives, very similar to Metroretro,

- Conceptboard (https://conceptboard.com/) - for working on mind maps. Allows to

collect ideas, visualise them, attach one to another.

The future

The ongoing crisis has shown that flexibility and fast adaptation to the new reality is

essential not only in business but also in education sector. Modern organizations should

always be prepared and open to new solutions and ideas. One of the most important assets of

using design thinking approach is user-centered designing. In this context, we can say, that as

long as the chosen tool meets user’s needs, it is perfect. Choose, prototype, test the best

option, evaluate and then start the process one more time.