During a project, do you sometimes feel that you can’t see the forest for the trees?

This is a problem that our customers meet regularly. Preparation and facilitation of co-creation workshops is part of the activities we organize for them to address the problem with a fresh perspective.

Recently, Tobo, one of our customers specialized in production of educational video games, asked us to organize a co-creation workshop with their young users; this workshop would then serve as a basis for a longer-term project.

MINI-HACKATHON!

The results are amazing! By the end of the day, three rich concepts emerged and will be presented as part of the Journées de la culture, on Sunday, October 2nd, 2016.
From 3 pm to 5 pm, we would like to invite you to the Vitrine Culturelle (2 Ste-Catherine Street East, Montréal). Come see the work of these young minds (event details here).

 

 

The mandate

We were asked to guide Tobo’s team in the preparation and facilitation of the second day of their “Mini Hackathon” for a group of children aged 9 to 12 years old. During this event, the group would discover mural art and design an app that would promote it.

This will enable Tobo’s team to design for and with their young users.
“What we want is to get young people to think about ways of communicating [their experience of murals] to other children” – Judith Beauregard, Executive Producer and Co-CEO

 

 

The challenge was double

First, we had to organize the workshop by identifying a framework. This would introduce the Mini-Hackathon leaders to aesthetic experiences and enable them to understand the complex concepts surrounding art appreciation.
In other words, know how to get youth to express their true emotional experience with art.

 

 

The second challenge was finding balance between a child’s creative process and a structured design process. We needed to allow the youth to express themselves freely, be as creatively crazy as they wanted, and yet follow a structured design process.

The workshop’s structure – 2nd day

The co-creation workshop was split into three main activities:

1. Organized game to relive and express the mural visit experience
2. Team ideation around three main themes
3. Prototyping and storyboarding of their concept

 

 

Expressions

Our approach was to equip the leaders with enough knowledge about the experience art so they would be ready for all kinds of reactions from the young participants.
We also rethought the value proposition canvas through a game which allowed children to explore and express their emotions. Their impressions enabled us to characterize a finer understanding of their artistic experience, without them having to understand complex concepts.

 

 

Ideation

We then explored the potential of existing technology through concept ideation. Teams then had to choose their strongest concept to move on to the next phase.

 

 

Prototyping

The experience was a great success for everyone involved. The “Mini-Hackathon” ended beautifully with the presentation of each team’s concept and prototype.

 

 

Freedom and creativity can indeed be combined to a well structured workshop for kids! We encourage you to visit the Vitrine Culturelle this Saturday to see their concepts.
We can’t wait to see Tobo’s design interpretations!

 

 

We believe that wonderful things can be achieved when there is teamwork. Collaboration workshops enables us to help teams like Tobo capture the value proposition of their products and explore a wide range of design solutions that people love to use.