Teachers and students get up on their feet for a warm-up exercise during a workshop on brainstorming and improv.

Workshops Offered

Workshops Offered

Workshops are an opportunity to dive deep into a single element of the design process in an active group setting.

We invite all members of our Georgia Tech community to attend one of our regularly scheduled workshops. These are supportive learning environments where students, faculty, and staff can build the skills and techniques necessary to succeed in a desired stage of the design process. 

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A Note for Interested Organizations

We train external organizations, upon request, with a tailored combination of our workshop offerings. We collaborate with each team to develop the curriculum that best fits the group's needs. To see one of these series in action, check out our past collaboration with educators in the Excel certificate program at Georgia Tech. 

Our workshops cover three key components of the iterative design process: understanding, expressing, and testing an idea. Take a look through our offerings to find the components that best serve your learning goals, and send us a request to develop the series that fits your team! 

Excel Workshop Series Request a Workshop
Design bloc professor speaks to classroom full of students about the design process..

Introduction to the Design Process

Introduction to the Design Process

This workshop analyzes a real-world product launch to identify the iterative pattern of understanding, expression, and testing that is the design process. You will advance with a list of the tools and skills you can develop to facilitate this process, each of which is covered in depth in the following workshops. 

Empathizing with Users

Your solution is going to affect others, and you can ensure the impact is positive by approaching the problem from your user's point of view. This skill is called empathy in design, and these workshops can help you build this foundational design behavior. 

Design Bloc workshop participant designs prototype utensil for partner during workshop on empathy for the user.

Introduction to Empathy

Reshape your partner's eating utensils by looking at food from their point of view.
Workshop participants test out different orange juicers side by side to study the product designer's point of view.

Design Point of View

Understand why two products will solve your problem in wildly different ways, due to the designer's point of view.

Expressing the Problem

A worthwhile design starts with a problem - one that your users need solved. Learn to interpret your users’ issues through lenses that clarify the root cause. After reframing the problem as a symptom of the user's need, learn how to define your project scope to pursue impactful and realistic solutions. 

Students stand around a table full of handheld kitchen implements, ready to begin user-testing.

Intro to User Needs

Try designing a solution with no need in mind, then experience the difference when you first understand your user's needs.
Sticky notes, sorted into four quadrants on a whiteboard, demonstrate a classification tool used by Design Bloc staff.

Design Abstraction

Create an impactful solution by understanding the full range of user-needs and defining the right scope of your problem.

Testing Your Solutions

Generating diverse solutions to a user’s need is an exciting milestone, but design concepts are validated by their success in the real world. Learn how to repeatedly test and refine your solution through rapid iteration.

Coworkers take part in an improv-inspired warmup activity before learning how to brainstorm ideas in a Design Bloc workshop.

Art of Improv and Brainstorming

Apply skills from improvisational theatre to generate multiple working solutions to a problem.
A room full of students all build rough prototypes at the same time during a Design Bloc workshop on rapid-iteration prototyping.

Rapid Iteration Prototyping

Build your rough mockup prototypes to answer a question. Test them with your users to learn something new.
A man sketches in a large notebook while a cameraman films from behind, photo taken during a Design Bloc activity on narrative storytelling.

Delivery through Narrative Storytelling

Your design is ready. Are your prepared to pass it on?

You will rely on multiple stakeholders to launch and develop your product, idea, or service. When the time comes to collaborate with new partners, how will you ensure these future developers keep the user and their need at the core of the design? 

Leverage the human capacity for recalling and retelling stories. This workshop teaches you how to communicate need-finding research, problem scope, and the results of prototyping through a narrative structure to ensure the next owner takes these key points into account in future iterations of the product. 

Reach Out to Us

Whether you're a student looking to join our team, or an organization seeking to introduce your workforce to design-thinking techniques, we want to hear from you. Connect with us!   

Contact Us Request a Workshop