Need a simple UX game for workshop

I'm looking for a real world example of UX which can be used in a short workshop I'm running. I was hoping to find some sort of game where I could split the teams into small groups, give them a time limit to perform some simple tasks, then show the results.

My audience is mainly people who know very little at all about UX. Does anyone know of a simple, real world usability problem which can be described to the audience so they can think in a way related to UX principals? Ideally, I'd like to get them working in teams to highlight the need for collaborative thinking.

All ideas welcome. (Sorry if this question is a bit outside the norm.)

Answer

The game you choose depends completely on your intention with the course.

• What do you want your audience to remember in 3 months?


• What is the single most important thing you want to share about UX?

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I would go for this "game":

1. Create groups of 3-4 persons



2. Give them accesories to create paper mockups (paper, pencils, colour pens, siccors, post-its, etc)


3. Let them create a mockup of some simple task. Eg. registration form, "social network"-ish UI, vote for US president, donate money for some FOSS-project. You don't need to keep these task "down to earth". Why not create the notification systems for Curiosity - the one that kicks in when Curiosity discovers life at Mars?


4. Run a couple of user-tests on some of the mockups. You should be the test-user yourself. That way you wont put any of your audience in an awkward situation, and you can "play dumb" to show a few classical test-situations.

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Why:

• Since everybody started directly on the design phase, you could point out that everyone made a big mistake. They didn't "analyze" first. Every mockup will probably fail if the main audience are blind users ;-) Emphasize the importance of the work in the early phases.


• Show the power of mockups and the importance of this in iterative work.


• The user is not like you. This is perhaps the most important point. Don't believe that you know the user. Don't believe that you can think like the user. The best way to experience this is to watch user do mistakes with your software.

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It is very important that this is well prepared and well organized. Prepare as much as possible. Have a clear time frame for each step, and test if this time frame is ok (not too tight and not too loose). Be clear about the issues you want to point out in the summary.