Design Facilitation (Book Chapter)


This post is a chapter from my book The User Experience Consultant: 10 Reasons Why UX Designers Should Consider a Career in Consulting

Chapter 4: Facilitation

A major part of what user experience consultants do is design facilitation. UX design is not a one-man job. An entire organization works to build the user experience and not just the designer / consultant or the design team as such. In a well managed business; everyone works on a shared vision and common goal. Designers only enable that vision of user experience by being at the forefront. It’s an arrogant and rookie mistake to think that only the design team builds the user experience. To excel in our career and work outcomes, it’s imperative for us to build collaborative skills and enable a design thinking culture.


Collaboration is the key to an efficient design expression at an organization level. Strategic design doesn’t happen in silos or, at your desk. Share your passion for design with other stakeholders and help them see the benefits. What is in it for them, the business and the users? Designers need to be people connectors. Design with everyone, ask opinions, co-create by involving them in the design process. Evaluate everyone’s feedback, with an open mindset and take a scientific and objective approach in stating your opinions at work. Remember, strong opinions, need stronger research and evidence. Otherwise, why should people take risk and invest in your random opinions and ideas?

A consultant facilitates workshops with a client and associated stakeholders to discover and define problem statements. The premise of consulting is solving the right problem, and not just solving a problem. A consultant should build the ability to cut through noise and see the problem clearly, enable other stakeholders to see the right problem, and get a buy-in from the entire group. Only after the right problem is identified it makes sense to delve into possibilities and solutions. Facilitating design workshops, working with large groups, an ability to put together diverse perspectives of various departments or stakeholders is a core challenge and role of a consultant. Workshops also help in building rapport within groups, along with the primary objective of arriving at a consensus. As a UX consultant you’re job is get people on the same page and enable solution delivery.

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