Design sessions will often start with a whole group meeting in which the design focus of the day is introduced. A part of the whole group meeting is often to ask a Question of the Day, which is a tool to transition from the more informal discussions and snack time to the design question at hand.
- All members of the design team sit in a circle so that everyone can see each other. Often this is on the floor; in any case it should be so that everyone can see each other and all designers, children and adults alike, are on the same level.
- Whoever is leading the session for the day typically sets the stage and asks the question.
- The question of the day should be something that everyone in the room can answer easily and typically from personal experience. It is related to the design topic of the day without explicitly being the design question of the day. This can provide insight into the design questions, so be sure to have someone jot down the answers, in case they are helpful for later analysis or presentation. Some example questions of the day could be:
- If you are designing an online game and are focusing on the mechanics of the game, asking everyone what their favorite game is and why. If team members are having trouble coming up with an answer, you could further scaffold this by offering that a “game” could be a video game, board game, playground game, etc.
- If you are designing a storytelling app, asking everyone to share a memory of being told a story.
- If you are designing a website to support children in learning math in the classroom, ask everyone their favorite thing they ever did in math class and why that was their favorite.
